My Latest Mistake
by Bligy
Summary: After Rory turned him down, Jess was reduced to the harsh New York streets and all the terrible things that went with it. Now, almost two years later, Jess finally asks for help and Rory finds out that she needs it. Literati.
1. Reasons Part One

**A/N: I know I shouldn't... I know that I REALLY shouldn't, but I have to. It's a desperate need to write something, and this happened to come out. Please understand that I have NEVER seen the fourth, fifth or sixth seasons. I am writing this blindly and in my own way. I will make it known that I don't particularly like Lorelai and that I can't write her worth shit. I'm so sorry to anyone who reads this who loves her... my apologies.**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter One**

**Reasons - Part One**

**Rated T**

Jess tried to steady his trembling hands. His mind was screaming at him. When had he turned into… this? Closing his eyes, he wrapped his arms around his waist and shrunk down to the ground with a loud moan. There were other men in the room, but he couldn't focus on them. Most of them were going through the same problems he was… withdrawal.

How long had it been since that night? He could barely remember… it was almost his twenty first birthday, but still he hadn't managed to pull himself together. She had refused him. Out and out refused him. What she did to him was the equivalent to ripping his heart out and showing it to him on a silver platter. After that night, he hadn't spent a single day sober. Over a year… and he couldn't remember any day after that.

"Where's a phone?" he groaned, but no one replied. They were too occupied. This was supposed to be a 'rehab'. For him, it was a miniature torture chamber.

"I need… I need a phone," he said again, stumbling forward as the world shook around him and poured him to his knees. "Help me!"

"What's the matter?" someone asked… maybe a nurse? Hopefully it was a nurse. He needed to get out of here.

"Phone, please… I need to call someone," he begged, grabbing a hold of their pants. A swift kick to the face was his response and a muttered insult echoed somewhere in the confines of his mind.

"What does a junkie need a phone for?" the guy scoffed. This was great bedside manner. He would really have to brag about these assholes to what ever junkie-based reporters he could manage to snag.

"My uncle… he can help me," Jess tried again, and the guy seemed to hesitate.

"You have family?" it was almost as though this were a hard reality to accept. "Where is he?"

"Connecticut… Stars Hollow," Jess stammered and his stomach heaved. "I'm going to be sick."

"Jesus!" the guy grunted, lifting Jess to his feet and shoving him over by the toilet, where Jess happily sacrificed what little food was left in his stomach to the bowl.

The world swam in his vision. He could barely make out any details, but it was a little less fuzzy than it was before. Crawling up the wall, he managed to get to his feet. It was definitely an improvement. Turning, he felt the world swim and struggled to keep his footing.

"Do you know his number?" the guy asked, and the bright glow of a cell phone opening drove his attention to where the guy was standing. In his mind, before he'd actually been able to see enough to get a picture of the guy, he'd seen someone tall, muscular and strong to match the deep voice. Instead, he got someone around his height with a body made out of wire and Harry Potter-like glasses. The picture made him blink for a second, and the guy's fiery red hair stood out like a torch.

"Are you listening to me?" the guy grumbled again, giving him a glare out of pair of bright green eyes.

"Yeah, sorry…" Jess mumbled Luke's number and felt his legs shake beneath his body, struggling to hold him up and losing the war.

"How long have you been in here?" the guy asked, kneeling down beside the broken man on the ground.

"I don't know… a week, maybe?" Jess shrugged, wrapping his arms around himself again to try to hold himself together.

"What's your name?" the guy asked, even as Jess heard the phone ringing.

"Jess… Jess Mariano," Jess stated, and suddenly he realized how this was going to sound. The tens of thousands of other times he almost called them sprung into his mind, and he almost told the guy to stop, but then his body surged and sent him into a seizure. He'd had them before, on the other times he's attempted to quit, but never this bad. His world went black, and when he woke up, he was lying in a bed on his side and there was yelling going on just outside the room.

"This place is a dump! You shouldn't be caring for… people like this in a place like this!" the person shouted, and Jess cringed, trying to block out the sounds.

"This is the only free rehab clinic on this side of New York. They take what they get, and if it fucks up their life, hey, it's no worse than what would happen out there," the guy that he'd come to recognize by the torch-red hair scoffed in return.

"I think he's awake," the same someone muttered, a female. Jess tried to place the voice. It was a desperate activity in futility. There was no face, no recognition. It was like his memory was gone. Is this what it felt like to be sober?

"Jess?" someone grunted, and the voice instantly struck a chord in his memory. Luke. That was his uncle. Pressing his eyes closer shut, he groaned and tried to sit up.

"Don't get up," Torch told him, shoving Jess back down onto the mattress.

"Don't touch him," Luke growled, and Jess could almost see Torch rolling his eyes.

"I'm fine…" Jess groaned, but even he could tell that it was a lie. Hell, he couldn't even open his eyes without searing pain.

"I want him moved to Stars Hollow," Luke demanded, and Jess heard something he'd never heard in Luke's voice before: fear. Was it fear for him, or just of this place?

"I can ask my parents…" the woman interjected, but was cut off.

"You don't need to do that, I have enough stored away," Luke objected, and then there was an obvious switch in the conversation. During this entire confrontation, Jess still hadn't been able to open his eyes. He hadn't been able to tell who the woman was. Who would be concerned enough about him to come to this hellhole? Or maybe it wasn't for him, but for Luke.

Slowly the words being said by Torch faded out of his mind. Something about arrangements being made and paperwork, some other shit about money and finally came the shouting match. Jess cringed, groaning and blocking it out. Sweat poured over his forehead and drenched his, now long, brown hair. Gently, someone touched his forehead, attempting to sooth the ache that was obvious on his face.

"It's going to be okay," the person said. She was trying to be supportive… to be kind and reassuring, but all he could think of was that she didn't give a damn about him, just about Luke. Her voice wasn't making sure that he was okay to be okay, it was making sure he was okay so that Luke wouldn't break. The thought made him angry enough that he tried to push her away.

"Leave me alone," he muttered, shoving at the hand still pushing his hair off his forehead.

"Luke, he's running a bad fever," the woman stated, freezing the argument.

"How much?" Luke sighed.

"Give me two grand and I'll leave out the paper work," Torch stated.

"Done," Luke grunted and there was the sound of a pen that Jess supposed was the writing of a cheque, and then the echoing footsteps of someone leaving.

"We need to get him out of here," the woman stated, and Jess risked opening his eyes. He saw a tiny glimpse of brown hair and blue eyes that made him gasp. It wasn't Rory, he would have recognized her, but he finally had a face to go with the voice… it was Lorelai.

"I'll carry him," Luke assured her, and Jess felt a soft weightlessness around him as he was lifted off the bed and pressed against his uncle's chest. Absently, he related the sights and smells of the moment to many, many years ago. He had been what… five? There had been a bad flu running around and he had caught it. Liz was too busy to attempt to take care of him, so Luke had been called to play nurse. Jess didn't remember many of those days, he'd been too sick, but he did remember quite a few of the smells.

While lopping about in his uncle's embrace, he felt his consciousness slip and gave in to the blackness that had been begging all night to hold him. Was this going to be a new start? Was it going to be like last time… where he got to Stars Hollow and everyone just stared at him like he was the grease spot marring their perfect world? It would probably be worse now. They would all know about how badly he'd screwed up. They would know how much Rory had screwed up his life.

A little less than two hours later, the truck halted to a stop and Jess jerked back to life. The world smelt different, it smelt like… hell. His version of hell, that was, Stars Hollow. Groaning, he hid his face away in the pillows that were hidden beneath his head. One of his hands was numb and his foot felt like it was on fire. Scrunching his eyes closed, he barely felt himself being carried out of the truck again. A little less than ten minutes later, he was unconscious.

-gGg-

"Will he be alright?" Lorelai asked Luke a bit sullenly.

"He'll be fine… I think," Luke replied gruffly. Lorelai had claimed to want to come, yet he'd felt the coldness radiating off of her at the very mention of Jess.

"How long will he be here?" she continued, glaring a little bit at the figure tossing and turning miserably on the couch.

"I don't know, however long he wants to say here," Luke shrugged, attempting to keep his tone as unthreatening as possible, but he knew what was coming and he wanted to avoid it to the best of his abilities.

"Rory…" Lorelai started, and then abruptly stopped.

"He won't be seeing her," Luke shrugged, turning away to look at Jess's sleeping form again.

"I guess not," Lorelai sniffed, and he hugged her close to him in an attempt to comfort her.

"I can't believe he called me," Luke breathed, his eyes never tearing from the sleeping form on the bed.

Lorelai was silent in his arms, for once. The moment slipped from tense to comforting after a few moments, when Luke was finally able to look away from his nephew back to the woman in his arms.

"So you'll be staying here tonight?" she asked, obvious disappointment on her face.

"I want to be here if he needs help," Luke explained.

"Alright… goodnight," Lorelai offered a small, sad smile and a last glance at Jess before departing the room.

"How long have you been awake?" Luke muttered, glancing away from the bed.

"Where's Rory?" Jess coughed in return.

"She's living with her grandparents," Luke answered honestly, feeling no need to hide where she was.

"Why's she there?" Jess muttered, sitting up a little bit on the bed and trying desperately to keep himself from coughing anymore.

Luke, seeing the coughing fit as something negative, poured a glass of water and drifted over to the bed, handing the water to Jess hesitantly. At first it almost looked like the younger man would actually be able to hold the glass, but soon his hand was shaking and the water was pouring all over the bed.

"Here," Luke offered, grabbing the glass and helping Jess drink it.

"Jeez," Jess moaned after a few sips. "I feel like a fucking vegetable."

"What were you taking?" Luke demanded instead of going with the smartass comment.

"Y'know… a little bit of this, a little bit of that," Jess evaded. "Did Lorelai help you redecorate?"

"No, and don't try to distract me. If I'm going to help you, I need to know what you were taking," Luke pressed.

"Because it seriously looks like there's a woman's touch here. Don't tell me that you're back with that Nicole woman," Jess coughed out, continuing to evade.

"Jess," Luke groaned, helping him with a little bit more water.

"One woman wasn't enough for you?" Jess attempted at humor, but it was brushed off with a sigh. "How long have you and Lorelai…?"

"Since your mum's wedding," Luke answered, and then looked at Jess expectantly.

"I don't know what I took," Jess finally admitted. "I just… it was whatever was there. Whatever I could get my hands on to chase the world away."

"Why the hell did you do it?" Luke asked with a mixture of horror and disbelief.

"You can't tell me that you didn't at least paint," Jess returned to his distraction method.

"Jess," Luke replied warningly.

"It looks good, though. I'm glad that you didn't touch my side of the apartment," Jess continued, ignoring his uncle's looks.

"Go back to sleep," Luke grumbled, placing the water on the night table. "Do you need anything else?"

"The name of your decorator, I'm going to give it to those assholes back at the clinic," Jess mocked.

"Goodnight," Luke shook his head, marching away in an attempt at a fuming cloud, but beneath the act, he was silently glad to have Jess around again. Even with Lorelai and the town, he'd been lonely. There'd been no one there to just… talk to. Jess provided that annoying voice that pointed out the obvious that no one wanted to see. Lorelai was good at nonsense and when Rory was around, she'd been good at subtly hinting, but Jess was the only person he knew who was blunt about this of that sort. An amused smile formed on his face when he thought about Taylor… Occasionally the lemons life dealt you were already doused with enough sugar that all you had to do was juice them.


	2. Starting

**A/N: I'm updating this one quickly because I have the muse for it, and there's one HELL of a confrontation in store in a couple of chapters and I'm dying to get to it as quickly as possible. I hope you like this one. I haven't reread it yet, I'll do it when I get home from work... which I'm going to be late for. Darn you CharliLee for rubbing off on me!**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Two**

**Starting**

**Rated T**

Morning came like a kick in the stomach and Jess tried his hardest not to just heave all over the bed. Fortunately, whatever had been left in his stomach was gone after yesterday's catastrophe, and he was simply spewing up stomach acid, ruining his throat and causing very little mess.

"Jess?" Luke called from across the apartment.

There was no reality, everything seemed to be shifting. Groaning, he attempted to get away from this place, from his own head, but all he managed to do was fall out of the bed, causing his uncle to run to his side and attempt to lift him back up again.

"No," he moaned, pushing him away, but found himself too weak to do even that.

"What's the matter?" Luke asked, concern lacing every syllable.

"I don't want… I don't…. I don't want to-," Jess started again and again, but every time he got out a word or two, he would start coughing and that would cause him to start dry heaving again. Soon he found himself sitting beside the toilet; face pressed into the toilet seat and hair slick against his head while shuffling in the other room suggested Luke was cleaning the bed.

"Drink this," Luke offered as he came back into the room, thrusting a glass into the younger man's face, and Jess tried desperately to do as he was commanded. There was nothing left in his stomach and his body was still going through its withdrawals. They weren't as bad as they had been the first week that he'd gone to the rehab 'clinic'. For the most part, he couldn't remember a single minute of it, but his body remembered that it was very, very painful.

"Thank you," Jess rasped after a few seconds, his throat raw from the coughing and the acid.

"Don't talk, just drink," Luke objected, glaring in concern and Jess nodded, continuing to press his face to the cold plastic of the toilet seat. Not the most glamorous position, but one he'd gotten fairly used to over the years. Hundreds of different toilets, hundreds of different floors, it was what you got when the places in New York that you were most familiar with served alcohol with a little something else in it.

After half an hour of them sitting there uncomfortably, Jess figured that he should probably attempt to get back to the bed. His body was shaking and his limbs were going numb. He'd rather be asleep than have to deal with everything that his body was doing to attempt to make up for the drugs that he was no longer allowing it.

Grabbing a weak hand onto the counter, he tried desperately to pull himself to his feet. Luke was there, watching him, waiting to make sure that he would be okay. When Jess managed to get to his feet, suddenly he couldn't feel an entire leg and he started to fall. Expecting, yet another, clash with a bathtub, he closed his eyes and tried to brace himself. It seemed that in those few seconds, he'd forgotten all about his uncle, who was there and caught him before he could do any damage to himself.

"Come on," Luke grunted, bracing one of Jess's arms around his shoulder and pulling the boy tight against his side. Jess barely moved his legs, but he understood the movement for what it was. Luke was trying to give him some illusion that he wasn't incapable. But Jess knew for a fact that, if his uncle hadn't caught him, he would have been a knocked out mess on the floor rather than a little ball curled up in his bed.

"Are you going to be okay?" Luke asked, and Jess fought his best through the clouds in his mind to nod.

"Yeah," he managed to get out, but even that word shook his entire body unpleasantly.

"Are you sure?" Luke pressed, glaring at him suspiciously.

"I'm fine," Jess snapped, not wanting to have to argue with Luke about precisely how incapable he was.

"I need to run out… do some things, take care of some business," Luke shuffled uncomfortably, like doing these things was the last thing that he actually wanted to do.

"Then go," Jess shrugged, curling more into the blankets and hugging them tighter around his shaking form.

"I'll be back, don't do anything stupid, okay?" Luke grumbled, and Jess managed another nod before the world went black around him.

-gGg-

Luke sighed as he looked at the door of the diner. There were probably nearing fifty people in the diner, and it was just him. Cesar had taken the day off and he was panicking. Every five minutes he would go upstairs to make sure that Jess hadn't done something stupid. Apparently his nephew had thought it was unnecessary and attempted to get him to come every ten minutes. Unfortunately for the boy-wonder, Luke had done what he'd said and had quickly found Jess struggling to go to the washroom and about to fall to a very unpleasant unconsciousness. After that, it had gone back to five minutes and Jess had uneasily agreed.

Tapping his fingers on the counter, he looked around the diner, debating which orders he'd taken and which he hadn't. There was no way he was going to be able to carry on like this through dinner. The lunch rush was bad enough… but trying to deal with squabbling children, squabbling Jess and screaming customers. No, that was too much.

Grumbling under his breath, he rushed around and took a few more orders before dashing into the kitchen and finishing another. Looking at his watch, which he'd programmed to go off with a little alarm every five minutes, he noted that he had less than thirty seconds. Rushing, he dragged all the food back out into the diner and placed it on the respective tables. A few people attempted to ask for other things, like their drinks to be refilled, but he had to ignore them when the alarm went off. Half-running, he dashed up the stairs with a very bad feeling in his throat.

"Jess?" Luke asked when he noticed that his nephew was no longer on the bed. Following the train of moaning, he found the man halfway to a bookcase, nursing his arm, which he'd obviously fallen on.

"Jeez," Luke grunted and lifted the boy back into his arms, not bothering with illusions this time. "What the hell did you do?"

"I don't remember… I was trying to get a book and then I was here," Jess muttered, rubbing his arm carefully.

"Is it broken, fractured?" Luke questioned, looking at the arm and knowing better than touching it.

"No," Jess shook his head and stared out a window grumpily.

"Which book did you want?" Luke sighed, looking over the bookshelf and the books that the kid had left here for over two years.

"I don't know, bring me something Hemmingway," Jess shrugged, and then cringed.

"Here," Luke offered, placing a stack of about ten books on the table beside the bed. He'd seen how his nephew read and he didn't want to be gathering books every ten minutes.

"Thanks… do you think that you could bring me some paper… a pen?" Jess groaned, weakening every second.

"Yeah, sure," Luke agreed, handing him the supplies and then eyeing the door.

"Go," Jess grumbled, picking up the paper and pen and starting to write.

"I'll be back in five minutes," Luke assured him.

"I'm not going anywhere, make it ten," Jess shrugged.

"Are you sure?" Luke eyed him suspiciously.

"Yes," Jess hissed between his teeth and gave his uncle a very nasty glare.

"Going," Luke put up his hands in a 'don't eat me' position. Stumbling down the stairs and back into the diner, he rushed around to a few more tables until he was positive that he'd gotten everyone's orders. Moving quickly, he got to the sign and turned it to 'CLOSED'. He'd take care of these orders and then he'd be done for the day. There was no way he was going to be able to care for Jess and take care of the diner.

Looking at his watch, he dashed into the kitchen and made another few meals, handing them out to tables, and then danced about, debating whether to go see Jess at the five minute mark again. Sighing, he stormed back into the kitchen and started slamming about angrily. Why did the boy have to be so stubborn? Now, here he was, feeling guilty because he wouldn't give the boy his space even though the last times he was late there was hell to pay. Grumbling, he put together another meal and dragged it out into the diner, unapologetically slamming it down in front of the customer, who looked startled.

"Sorry," Luke grunted and moved back into the kitchen, stealing glances at his watch every few seconds.

-gGg-

Jess stared down at the pages in his lap uncomfortably. He'd gone over them a couple of times, they were pretty well written, not exactly publishing material, but well-written nonetheless. Sighing, he shuffled the ten pages or so and leaned back against his pillows. He was tired, nay, exhausted. The world was doing its best to make sure that he wouldn't be able to write any more than he already had down, and all that he had down was what it was like when he first came here… he hadn't even gotten to the heroine of the story yet.

The door to the apartment opened and Jess did his best to ignore his uncle, who was probably coming in to scold him or some stupid thing. Biting his tongue, he wrote down a few more words and frowned at the page.

"So you're doing alright?" asked a voice that was most definitely not Luke's. The pen drooped a little bit in his hand as he looked up to see Lorelai looking at him, concern written plainly on her face.

"I'll be fine," he shrugged, glancing a couple times at her out of the corner of his eye as he continued to write.

"Your hair's gotten longer," she commented needlessly.

"You don't say," Jess shook his head, his normal sarcasm knocked out by a coughing fit.

"I brought you some hair gel," Lorelai offered, placing it down on the bed.

"What?" Jess gasped through the coughing, and looked down at the bed to see what was most definitely hair gel.

"I want you to know that, while you're not my favorite person in the world, I still want you to get better," she told him grudgingly.

"I won't hurt him," Jess told her, staring her right in the eye.

"Last time two times you were here, I wanted to slaughter you," she told him evenly.

"Thank God for divine providence," he quipped back, never dropping eye contact.

"I know that you saw Rory after the wedding, but she never told me what happened," Lorelai continued evenly, ignoring his comments. Jess fell silent, looking away and trying not to remember that night. His eyes closed tightly and his lips pursed to an unnatural white look. His body suddenly thrummed with the need, with addiction.

"No," he shook his head, glaring at her. "No, no, no, no no."

"No what?" Lorelai asked, obviously confused.

"No," he almost shouted at her, remembering that night more and more vividly. "Get out."

"Huh?" Lorelai stammered, looking at him like he'd grown another head.

"I said 'Get out'!" Jess roared, even with his soar throat.

"Woah, what's going on up here?" Luke inquired breathlessly as he burst into the room, looking for some sort of evil boogeyman.

"Get her out of here," Jess begged miserably.

"What did you do?" Luke demanded of her.

"Nothing, I mean, I was just talking…" Lorelai trailed off, realizing what had triggered the outburst.

"About what?" Luke snapped, glaring at her.

"Rory," Jess whimpered from the bed, holding his head and staring at the track marks that marred his wrists and wishing that he could add another one to their midst.

"Lorelai…" Luke growled in warning.

"I'm going," Lorelai cried, obviously upset that she'd done this.

"Rory," Jess said again, unable to make the word sound less beautiful. "Rory… Rory…"

"Jess, Jess you need to calm down," Luke told him, sitting on the bed beside him and grabbing one of his hands, which was currently wringing itself with the other.

"But… Rory," Jess attempted to reason, but he didn't remember what he was reasoning.

"Go to sleep," Luke sighed, pushing Jess back onto the bed gently and trying to get him to sleep.

"Rory," Jess said once more, closing his eyes and trying to shut that door of his life, the one that was begging him to take another hit. Just one more time, his mind begged him. That was it, one more shot, one more hit and he'd be free. It was then that it occurred to him. It wasn't the drugs he was taking, it was her.


	3. After

**A/N; YAY FOR AUTHOR'S NOTES. Okiday... HUGE warning for this chapter. I've never seen a single episode where Luke and Lorelai are together. Never, ever in my life. The only episodes I watched in the sixth season where the episodes with Jess in it, and even then, it was only the Jess-centric scenes. In short, I have no idea how they talk, walk, move, do things at all. Don't kill me, then I couldn't finish my other stories, even if this one falls on its ass today. Trust me, I like happy or bittersweet endings, so this one probably isn't going to end in the fashion that the end of the story lends itself to... you'll know what I mean.**

**Anyhoo. This is not my best chapter... ever, like, in a million years would I even consider this chapter good, let alone well-written. I can stand to read it because I'm ignorant. For all of those who are happy in their ignorance with me... woo!**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Three**

**After**

**Rated T**

Luke stared at his nephew from the door. Jess hadn't noticed he was there yet, but he'd been standing for at least ten minutes. It was odd, the teenage version of his relation would have known he was there the second he leaned against the doorstop, but this one seemed oblivious. In less than twenty four hours, Jess had managed to write almost one hundred pages of… something. He'd been very secretive about it, hadn't let anyone near the pages. Ever since the strange Lorelai-attack and the blackout after it, there had been no pauses.

"Jess," Luke coughed, trying to gain some attention.

"Huh?" Jess muttered, looking up at him. A frown appeared on his face, like he was confused, and then something dawned on him and a look of shock appeared. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Doesn't matter," Luke shrugged and stepped into the room.

"You didn't have to close the diner down today… I'm fine," Jess protested again, as he had every single time they'd talked that day.

"If you were fine, you wouldn't be here," Luke pointed out and Jess frowned before nodding.

"Did you want something?" Jess asked after a few seconds, and Luke sighed. Yes, there was something very specific… but it was awkward and involved a topic that neither one of them wanted to talk about.

"What happened… after the wedding?" Luke finally got out. At the 'what happened', Jess probably thought it would be about the drugs, but the second part seemed to throw him off balance, and the younger man turned away with a sober look in his eyes.

"I did something stupid," Jess answered, a straight answer. Luke was almost shocked, but this was a pretty serious situation to be joking in, especially after the attack.

"How stupid?" Luke pressed with a slight glare.

-gGg-

Was there anything beyond stupid, beyond idiotic, moronic? If there was, that night would have been one of the many days that he'd hit that low. Feeling the story attempt to choke him, he didn't know if he would be able to recite it. Cringing, he looked away, feeling her name begging to be said on his lips again, but he couldn't say it… it would drive him crazy.

"How was mom after the wedding?" he evaded instead.

"Jess," Luke growled, but Jess ignored it, like he usually did.

"I mean, I said I'd say goodbye, but I was too pressed for time," Jess stated with a firm nod.

"Liz was upset, Jess," Luke grumped, throwing his hands up. "What happened to you after the wedding, what did you do?"

"Her dress was gorgeous though, I'm kinda upset that I didn't go in costume. Do you think I would have looked good in tights?" Jess continued to throw off the words, terrified of what the story was going to do to his sanity.

"Lorelai thinks that I need to send you to a mental hospital," Luke blurted, and they both froze.

"What?" Jess gasped after a few seconds, all his defenses shattered.

"She doesn't think we can help you here," Luke reasoned, but sounded uncertain of the words.

"I'm not insane!" Jess shouted.

"I know," Luke stated, looking thoroughly mad at himself.

"But if Lorelai commands," Jess scoffed, unbelieving of what was being said to him.

"This has nothing to do with Lorelai!" Luke growled.

"Then what?" Jess roared, sitting up in the bed even though it made his entire world go black for a second.

"You're sick, Jess… I don't know if I can help you," Luke stated, almost defeated.

"I came here, to you, for your help. You're Mr. Fix-It. You fix everyone, even when they don't want to be fixed. I didn't want your help then, but I need you now," Jess explained tiredly, falling back onto the bed. If that didn't work, then he'd happily leave Stars Hollow forever.

There was a moment of consideration where Jess watched his uncle hang his head down, and then he slowly nodded. "Okay," Luke finally agreed. "But we have to go see a doctor."

"Fine," Jess sighed, turning away, even more tired now that he had his verdict. If he'd have been kicked out, there weren't many other places he could go.

"I need to know," Luke finally said after they sat in silence. Jess's eyes closed slowly. He'd prayed that Luke would have forgotten. Apparently his luck wasn't that good. Either that, or God wasn't listening.

"I went to see her, at Yale," Jess said evenly.

"Oh," Luke muttered.

"Dean was there and I told her I needed to talk to her, alone," Jess continued to explain, like a robot. "I asked her to run away with me to New York. I begged her not to say 'no'. I told her only to say if she really didn't want to be with me… and she said it. She said it to my face… screamed it. I left, I went back to New York, and that was the last day I was sober for the past two years."

"Jeez," Luke sighed, shaking his head.

"Damn those Gilmore women, huh?" Jess attempted, but neither of them was humored with the situation.

"I always wondered what drove her to do that…" Luke frowned.

"Do what?" Jess frowned.

"Oh, uh, nothing… just… I guess, with Dean and," Luke stammered.

"What?" Jess demanded, but he felt his blood run cold. He knew what it was. He knew it before Luke even opened his mouth.

"About a week after the wedding, a week after you saw her, she and Dean… well, and they were together for a few months before he left," Luke offered with a shrug.

"Wasn't Dean supposed to be married?" Jess managed to get out, even though his tongue felt like sandpaper.

"Well…" Luke trailed off.

"Jesus," Jess blinked, shaking his head as though to get the thoughts out of her out of his head. "I need… I need – to sleep."

"Yeah, sure, okay, no problem," Luke continued to trip over himself, getting up and going to the door. "I'm going to Lorelai's if you need me."

"Yeah," Jess almost whimpered, turning away.

Luke sighed and walked out of the apartment, leaving the distraught youth to his new piece of self-flagellation.

-gGg-

"Lorelai, are you home?" Luke requested as he opened the front door. He'd knocked for a few minutes, unsure what was going on, but she hadn't answered. Thus, he invited himself inside and looked around. "Lorelai?"

"Oh my God!" Lorelai shouted, coming out of Rory's room and slamming right into him.

"Are you okay?" Luke asked with concern, gently supporting one of her arms.

"Yeah, fine, just… awesome and continuing with the fine," Lorelai nodded, but it was obvious she was troubled.

"Look, I have something that I need to tell you," Luke sighed, leading her to the table.

"I was looking up a few places for Jess… places that work well with people with drug addictions who also have mental problems, because apparently he's not as unique as he always pretends he is and there's actually something in Hartford-," Lorelai ranted.

"He's staying," Luke cut her off, looking down at the ground uneasily.

"What?" Lorelai gasped, blinking at him.

"He needs me… he's staying," Luke shrugged.

"I thought that we agreed that it wouldn't be good for him," Lorelai stammered.

"No, you stated, I thought and attempted to dissuade, but got caught up… I talked to him, and he wants to stay, so he's staying," Luke shrugged.

"But what do you know about helping drug addicts?" Lorelai snapped.

"About as much as I did about raising teenagers," Luke joked.

"Yeah, and look how that turned out," Lorelai grumped, and the room seemed to drop a few degrees. It seemed to dawn on her after a few seconds precisely what she'd said and she looked at him in desperation. Luke stared at her, jaw dropped as the words repeated over and over in his head.

"This was not my fault!" he roared, standing up and pointing in the general direction of the diner.

"No, I didn't mean that it was your fault… I just – it was stupid and out of place and I'm sorry Luke," Lorelai attempted.

"Is that what you think?" Luke snapped.

"What?" Lorelai pleaded with him to understand where she stood in all this, but it was like a hit and miss right now. Jess was a very sensitive subject with anyone who happened to be related to him.

"Do you think it was my fault?" Luke clarified.

"No, I think that Jess was already screwed up. There was no way for you to help him," Lorelai stated.

"He was doing better! He was getting better!" Luke objected.

"Sure, because crashing a car, failing high school and running away are great past times," she scoffed.

"Yeah, well who was to blame for that?" Luke growled.

"What are you getting at?" she sighed, as though she was tired of this conversation already.

"If Rory hadn't told him to turn right, that car crash never would have happened. If he wasn't working so damn hard to impress her, he never would have failed high school, and if Rory hadn't ripped his heart out at Yale, he never would have done this!" Luke motioned wildly with each of his words, suddenly realizing how true they all were. Their entire time together, Luke had always thought that he'd have to protect Rory from Jess. Never had he realized that it was the exact opposite.

"This was not Rory's fault! How could you even say that?" Lorelai protested, tears sprouting in her eyes.

"I think I need some time," Luke blurted, feeling the reality of the situation crashing in on him.

"What?" Lorelai gasped, staring at him in horror.

"Until he's good to go and he leaves… I just… I need some time," Luke shrugged.

"Are you… calling off the engagement?" Lorelai leaned heavily against the table and Luke, for once, didn't feel the undying urge to protect her from herself.

"Yeah, I guess I am," Luke shrugged, standing up and walking towards the front door.

"Luke, wait!" Lorelai cried, chasing after him. "Why?"

"Because… I love you, but he's family, and if you can't accept my family, even when they come to me for help, then you can't support me when I need it. He needs me, and you want me to send him to a mental facility. You can't be there for me, because you still hate him too much for what he did to Rory. Maybe you should ask Rory what she did to him. But wait… you can't, because Rory's run away too! Guess we're even," Luke shouted at her, and watched her recoil with ever word. A pit of hatred rolled in his stomach. Hatred for himself for saying those things, hatred for Jess for coming to him, hatred of Rory for hurting Jess and somewhere inside him was the slightest bit of hatred for Lorelai for being unable to accept this.

Without waiting another minute to hear her response, he turned and marched back to the diner in an angry cloud.

-gGg-

The black cloud that entered into the room signaled his uncle's approach, and Jess found himself looking up from the words that he'd written on the page in front of him to the man who was now ripping things involving Lorelai from every surface. Sighing, Jess placed the book down on the bed and tried his best to sit up.

"Luke," he attempted to stop the storming man, but Luke didn't seem to hear him.

"Luke," Jess sing-songed. "Oh Lukey-bear!"

"What?" Luke snapped in disgust, finally turning to look at him.

"Nice to see you know your name," Jess scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"I'm not in the mood, what do you want?" Luke grumbled.

"To know why the Lorelai exterminator decided that today was the perfect day for purging," Jess eyed the objects in Luke's hands pointedly.

"I called off the engagement," Luke sighed, sitting down on the end of Jess's bed.

"What?" Jess gasped, sitting up straighter and almost knocking himself out by moving too quickly.

"With Lorelai… I called it off," Luke clarified a little better, but that wasn't the question being asked and they both knew it.

"Let me rephrase that… 'Why?'" Jess restated.

"She just… she doesn't understand anything right now. She's so caught up with Rory that she-," Luke started.

"It's because of me," Jess cut him off, staring down at the bed.

"No, well, not really, I mean yes, you had something to do with it," Luke fumbled, but they both knew precisely what was going on.

"So now you're going to get rid of all her stuff, put it in a 'Lorelai-Box' and then go work in the diner, burning everyone's food and kicking out people who complain?" Jess joked lightly.

"Why would I do that?" Luke scoffed, staring at him like he'd grown a second head.

"Because you don't know how to vent your anger," Jess shrugged. "You just sorta… do things."

"I do not," Luke protested. "They're sensible things!"

"Sure, right," Jess nodded, eyeing him with a raised eyebrow.

"Shut up," Luke said after he lost their staring war and shuffled off to his side of the apartment.

"I think… I think I need to see her… Rory, I mean, when I get better," Jess attempted to distract him from destroying, yet another, Lorelai-based object.

"Are you kidding? The last time she was even mentioned, you practically had a seizure," Luke shook his head.

"It wouldn't be the first time," Jess muttered.

"You've had seizures before?" Luke frowned, moving back to Jess's side.

"Just during withdrawal," Jess shrugged, looking away.

"How many times have you tried to quit?" Luke asked, sitting on the edge of his bed lightly and looking sternly at him.

"I don't know… I tried to quit on my birthday last year, but I couldn't," he shrugged, his eyes flickering up to Luke's and then back down to the bed.

"It'll work this time," Luke said sternly, giving him something of a glare.

"If I didn't think it would, I wouldn't be here," Jess returned, staring at him just as hard.

"Good," Luke nodded, rising again and placing things more lightly into the Lorelai-box.

"When I leave… you should apologize and, I don't know, get her flowers or some shit," Jess shrugged.

"Maybe," Luke shrugged, looking over at Jess with a grimace.

Jess just nodded and returned to his pages. The first set, over two hundred pages, were gone. This one was new. It was flowing from his mind like water. Some story that he'd never thought about before he'd gotten high. Perhaps there was something good about being on drugs. It really screwed your brain into thinking up some original ideas. Hell, Alice in Wonderland was a great example. Smirking, he traced down another line and wondered how she would like it. The words hesitated for a moment. Despite being brought up in the conversation, Jess had been attempting to bar her from his mind. Apparently it wasn't working too well. Sighing, he pressed a hand to his forehead to chase her away, and then returned to his words.


	4. Jump

**A/N: Yeah, yeah, yeah... I haven't been updating, but there is a very good reason for it!!! I just haven't thought it up yet... so... I've been writing this chapter for about three days. I don't know if this is physically possible, I just know that I work in a chiropractic office and I've seen it before (You'll know what I mean). Without further ado, here goes nothing.**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Four**

**Jump**

**Rated K+**

A week had past. An entire week that he'd spent in a bloody bed with nothing but Ernest Hemingway and his own thoughts to cheer him up. To put it mildly, he was not amused. Fortunately, his frequent visits to the doctors had given the verdict that he was about to be released from house arrest. Now that he was able to walk in a straight line without falling down and hold up a glass of water, let alone a plate of food, without dropping it, even Luke had agree that it was time for him to be allowed back into the world.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Luke repeated like the broken record he was. Jess eyed him and shook his head.

"I've been sitting in my old bed fermenting, eating your food, stealing your water and generally mooching everything for the past week. I want to help," he shrugged. "Besides, don't I still owe you money from that party, and the car?"

"You don't owe me anything," Luke sighed, shaking his head and letting Jess go down the stairs first so that he'd be there to catch him if he fell.

"I'm not made of glass," Jess grumbled, storming down the stairs and whipping the curtain aside.

"Good to know," Luke returned gruffly.

In the spirit of returning the favor, Jess had volunteered his services to the diner until he was able to leave. Although the doctor didn't know if he should be dealing too much with people, seeing as how he was a ray of sunshine anyway, he still placed 'pouring coffee' on the 'Okay Activities' list.

Almost two hours later, Jess was bored to tears and wondering what on earth possessed him to offer to help, especially seeing as how he'd forgotten a book. Fortunately, there was a small ray of hope to his evening. Every ten minutes or so, he would see Lorelai walk past the diner, look inside longingly, and then walk away. He was keeping a tally, secretly, and having issues not pointing her out to Luke every single time he saw her. It was remarkable. She was almost as on-time with her pacing as Luke was with interrupting him and Rory when they were kids.

Rory, there was that damn name again. Frustration poured through his veins when he thought of how hard he'd been attempting to avoid thinking about her, and how much she was everything into his mind anyway. He'd given up on his autobiography because it hurt too much to write her name even if he was attempting to detach himself. The thought brought his story back to his mind and he yanked the stack of paper out of his pocket.

"Aren't you supposed to be working?" Luke grumbled. Jess looked at him and then at the diner, and then back to Luke with a raised eyebrow. There was only one person in the diner. "Point taken."

Jess shook his head and went back to the story, writing furiously. His hands were sore. Over the past week, he'd written over five hundred pages in both stories, although there was a considerable amount more in the story he was working on currently. Not knowing why, he had already picked out a name for it: 'The Subsect'

"What is that?" Luke traveled back over to him and looked over his shoulder.

"Nothing," Jess brushed off, closing the pages and shoving them back in his pocket.

"That nothing is everywhere in your room," Luke pointed out.

"Huh," Jess continued to evade and went out to refill the two centimeters of coffee that the guy's cup needed and then went back to the counter. Gazing up at the clock, he then looked intently at the window.

"What are you waiting for?" Luke asked with only mind interest in his voice.

"You'll see," Jess shrugged, and lo and behold, Lorelai walked past two seconds later. She looked into the diner, saw them looking, and ran away. "I think you scared her away."

"How long as she been doing that?" Luke asked. His voice was rough, trying to be butch, but Jess knew how much this was probably hurting his uncle.

"Every ten minutes," Jess sighed, no longer thinking it was funny.

"Maybe I should go talk to her," Luke fretted.

"Every time you say that, you make it halfway there and run back here claiming that you forgot something, and that it's too late to go see her anyway, or that she'll be at work, or that she probably doesn't want to see you, or, my personal favorite, that she's probably are her parent's house," Jess taunted, causing the black cloud over his uncle's head to recede a little bit.

"Well…" Luke grumbled, shrugging his shoulders and leaning on the counter a little bit.

"Go see her," Jess nudged, nodding towards the window.

"Three years ago you were doing the same thing," Luke shot back weakly.

"Yeah, but I was eighteen," Jess shrugged, smirked and shook his head.

"Go do some work," Luke grumbled, the black cloud seeming to have been warded off for the moment, but the lines around his uncle's face suggested that there would be no talking to Lorelai tonight, or any night soon. Sighing, Jess leaned on the counter, which Luke was cleaning for no apparent reason, and started writing his story again.

"Was I wrong?" Luke mused under his breath.

"Given how guilty you feel…" Jess mumbled right back.

"I said that out loud?" Luke gaped, staring at Jess, who smirked and nodded. "I'm not guilty."

"You didn't call it off permanently, only until I'm gone… and I don't intend on being here too long, so…?" Jess trailed off.

"I know, I know… but… should I at least, I don't' know, talk to her?" Luke stammered.

"That's up to you," Jess shrugged, going back to his writing once more.

"She's there again," Luke commented lifelessly, and Jess looked up to see Lorelai walking past, sneaking looks out of the corner of her eye.

"Go," Jess shook his head as Luke danced around. "Go!"

"Okay," Luke agreed and dashed out of the diner after her.

Jess shook his head, sighing, and looked down at the words on the page in front of him. He had no idea where all the pages he'd written were. They were scattered between his other story, and occasionally a random journal-esque note he'd write to himself. Every page was numbered and had a little sign beside said number telling which story it belonged to. At least that way he could gather them all back together.

The coffee-man left around eight, which left Jess alone for the last two hours before closing. It was strange not even having one person come in, but that probably had a lot to do with the town's boycott of the diner ever since he returned. Even Kirk was avoiding coming inside, even though he'd forgotten about the boycott three times and came in to order his coffee, before spitting it out and running away the second he saw Jess.

Ten o'clock rolled around, and Jess's hand felt like it was on fire. Shaking it out, he frowned down at the page in his hand and nodded. That was the end… that story was over, and he was fairly pleased at where it had gone. Standing up for the first time in two hours sent him reeling, and he fell down to the ground, feeling a throbbing pain in the back of his neck.

"Luke…" he whispered, knowing that his uncle was no where that he could hear the call.

Struggling over to the phone, he used a counter to pull himself up so he could knock down the receiver and dial the numbers sloppily. It was a number he'd had memorized for years. A number he had long associated with blue eyes and brown hair.

"Hello?" was spoken in a half-teary voice. Obviously the reconcilement wasn't going as well as planned.

"Help," was what he managed to get out before he fell to the ground, the pain becoming too severe.

"Jess?" was shouted into the phone, it was Luke, and he sounded frantic. "Jess!"

Jess tried to gasp out his plea again, but the blackness eating at his vision told him that he wouldn't be awake much longer, let alone talking. Trying to blink it away, he came to the understanding that this most definitely wasn't normal. Back in New York, it wasn't common to pass out because of the drugs, but this just felt… strange.

Ten minutes later, he was still fighting off the blackness, swatting at nothing everyone once in awhile, but trying to keep his body moving.

"Jess!" Luke exclaimed as he burst into the diner.

"Hey," Jess managed, but it came out garbled, and he finally let the blackness take him away.

-gGg-

Luke sat in the emergency room an agitated mess. He didn't know what was wrong, so he'd called in the ambulance and Jess had been carted off to the hospital without him. He'd had to follow them in his truck. There had probably never been a time in his life that he'd driven so fast.

Now, almost two hours later, a doctor was finally coming out to see him.

"What's wrong?" Luke demanded, jumping to his feet.

"The chemicals in his bloodstream are unbalanced and it reacted negatively with the medications that he's taking, causing muscle spasms that cut off oxygen to certain parts of his body, and finally his brain. Has you nephew been complaining of numbness at all?" the doctor explained soothingly.

"Numbness? No… I mean, no, not that I know of, but hey, he doesn't exactly talk much and what does this mean?" Luke rambled a little bit, concern marring each word.

"It means that he needs to be placed on different medications and he'll probably need to see a different doctor, as well as a chiropractic care to make sure that none of the muscles have effected his spine more negatively than it is currently," the doctor explained, then seemed uncomfortable for a second and looked Luke square in the eye. "I'm afraid I have some more bad news."

"What?" Luke deadpanned, looking past the doctor towards the room that he knew his nephew to be in.

"Some of the muscles had frozen in place, pinching nerves… and it appears that they have paralyzed parts of his body," the doctor said solemnly. "We have relaxed the muscles, but the nerves have been damaged."

"What?" Luke gasped, staring at the doctor like he was crazy.

"We're not sure how long he'll be this way, but he will need a wheelchair," the doctor explained further.

"A wheelchair?" Luke repeated, looking down and trying not to think of how Jess was going to react to all of this.

"Yes… you can either rent one, or buy one, depending on how long the specialists estimate his condition to continue," the doctor told him, seeming not to care that the diner man was slowly losing his composure.

"Does he know?" Luke rasped, shaking his head to get the cobwebs out.

"Your nephew is currently unconscious, but we are doing our best for his body," the doctor stated, pressing a hand to Luke's shoulder. "He'll be okay."

"Can I see him?" Luke asked instead of accepting the consoling hand.

"Of course, he's right in there," the doctor pointed at the open room that Luke was openly staring at.

"Thanks," Luke muttered and rushed past him, into the room. Jess was attached to a machine that monitored his heart, but otherwise he was breathing on his own and there were no odd tubes. That small relief let him breathe a little bit easier. Luke looked down at the boy's legs and attempting to ignore the painful lurch in his stomach. He turned away and stared at a chair beside the bed instead. Slowly he moved towards it and sat down with a sigh.

"So… a wheelchair," he muttered, staring at Jess's hand and wondering if he would be appropriate for him to hold it. It was always what they did in the movies, but this wasn't a movie, and this wasn't Lorelai or Rory in the bed, it was Jess, and Jess didn't like being touched. With that in mind, he pulled back and stared at Jess's face again.

"I left before we could really say anything… there was a lot of pointless yelling and accusing and you were brought up… a lot. When you called, we were about to decide whether we were still together… she told me that I should go back to her after I cam here with you. She didn't come with me," Luke stated, and watched Jess's face for some sort of recognition. "She says that keeping you here is selfish, because you're getting between us… I don't know why, but I know that I have to help you. So you wake up so we can start this… you can get better and… do something with yourself, maybe get that book published."

He hesitated, staring down at Jess's prone form and feeling the beginnings of tears at the back of his eyes, but he would not cry for his nephew. "Come on, wake up," Luke attempted to coax him, but Jess stayed unconscious.

"Sir… we're going to have to ask you to step out," a nurse told him, looking at Jess cautiously and then back to Luke.

"Sure – of course," Luke bobbed his head a couple of times, standing up for the chair and turning to look at Jess in contemplation before looking away and walking out of the room so he could sit in a chair and wait all night long, if he had to.


	5. Changing

**A/N: As much as this story isn't liked as much much as my others, I'm addicted to it. I'm sorry for the lack of Literati interaction, but I have to set up the story first. Think of this as The Diner Boys, Season One. Rory should be coming in somewhere around chapter ten, I think, give or take a couple of chapters.**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Five**

**Changing**

**Rated T**

Something was different. He didn't need the bleeping of machines, or the hard hospital bed beneath him to tell him that. The sheer fact that he was having difficulty moving spoke volumes for his health. Frowning, he flopped a little bit, feeling his arm move beside him. That was good, one limb down. Flopping a little more, he got his second arm moving and then he moved onto the hard part. But try as he may… his legs didn't seem to want to move. Brushing it off as an aftereffect of the drugs, he shrugged it off and went onto the hardest movement of all, his eyes.

"Humprhg," he grumbled as they opened to bright hospital lights. An arm flew up to shield his eyes.

"Jess?" Luke requested eagerly. Jess looked to the side, beyond his arm, and attempted to smirk at his uncle. It didn't quite work.

"What's going on?" he asked groggily and attempted to sit up. A jarring pain in his back told him that it wasn't a good idea.

"We're in a hospital," Luke pointed out needlessly, looking almost as disturbed as Jess was with this news.

"No, really?" Jess scoffed and frowned when he realized that he couldn't feel anything beneath his waist. "What's going on?" His voice was a little bit more strained now, reaching and demanding.

"It's your legs, Jess…" Luke stopped and trailed off, unable to finish.

"What about them?" Jess demanded, trying to sit up to stare down at them, but was knocked back again by a bout of pain.

"The doctor says you're paralyzed…" Luke rasped out, looking anywhere but his nephew as Jess's eyes bored into his back.

"Paralyzed?" Jess repeated, and whipped the blankets off his legs. He stared down at them, as much as he could over his body, and tried to make his toes move, tried to do something. Grabbing a piece of his leg's skin in his hand, he pinched as hard as he could, but he didn't feel it.

"Stop it!" Luke shouted, grabbing Jess and stopping him from doing anymore bizarre tests.

"How? How the hell did this happen?" Jess roared, shoving Luke off with the last panic-driven energy he had in his system.

"The doctor can tell you, I'll get the doctor," Luke attempted, but Jess snarled at him, wordless and pain-filled.

"No!" he shouted again, and tried to slide himself off the bed.

"Nurse!" Luke yelled, searching for someone to help them. "Nurse!"

A couple of nurses came running at his call, syringes in hand. They rushed towards Jess, who stared at them in horror. "No! Get away from me!" he screamed, but they didn't listen. They pinned him to the bed and one of them delivered the needle with pinpoint accuracy.

"Paralyzed?" Jess gasped up at Luke, still trying to get it through his head. There were tears in his eyes and the terror of his future hadn't quite left them either. As he went under his mind circled around the ten million things he wouldn't be able to do anymore. Blackness encompassed him, and in that blessed darkness, all he could think about was that his life was ruined… what little of it that he hadn't already destroyed.

-gGg-

Luke sat outside Jess's room, as he had been for the past two days. He was shaking, just slightly, from exhaustion and maybe a little bit from fear. Jess's outburst had taken him by surprise and he hadn't liked it much. Trying to tame his hands, he clenched them around the, God-help-him, coffee cup in his hands. The nurses kept supplying him with them. There was a bed sitting beside his chair, but there was no way he could sleep in a hospital, especially with Jess suffering in the next room.

He had contacted Lorelai about half an hour ago, retelling the tale of Jess's outburst. She had tried to support him the best she could over the phone, but finally conceded that she'd be there in forty minutes. Luke was grateful, but he still felt empty. That last look that Jess had given him, while the drugs were taking effect, was enough to destroy him.

"Mr. Danes?" one of the nurses asked.

"Hmm?" Luke barely got out. He felt like he was ready to collapse.

"Your nephew, Jess Mariano, will be able to be released by the end of today. We need someone to sign the forms… will you be taking care of him?" she asked pleasantly, trying to keep the situation as bright as possible.

As she said it, Lorelai walked in. She rushed over to him and hugged him tightly. He reveled in the hug and hugged her back, hiding in her. The nurse coughed a little bit, drawing the attention back to herself.

"I'm sorry sir, but the forms?" she pressed.

"Forms?" Lorelai butted into the conversation, as she often did. "Signing your life away?"

"So to speak," Luke couched and took the forms with a nod. "Yeah, I'll be the one taking care of him."

"You're not going to send him to a hospital?" Lorelai asked tightly, noticing the name at the top of the page and reading over his shoulder.

"No, I'm not. He wouldn't want to go, I don't want him to be more upset than he already is," Luke shrugged, eyeing her and trying to get across that he really didn't want to fight about this.

"But Luke… you have stairs. I have stairs… Stars Hollow has stairs! How are you going to live?" Lorelai pointed out, and Luke's hand froze over the page. She had a very valid point. Sighing, he tapped the pen twice across the page and looked up at the nurse.

"Do you know of any places I could get some sort of… wheelchair lift… or, I don't know, something?" Luke asked.

"I can have a list of phone numbers for you in ten minutes," she recited and he nodded gratefully.

"Thanks," he muttered and went back to the pages, avoiding looking at Lorelai.

"So you're just going to install an elevator and that's it?" she snapped.

"What else would you suggest, leaving him here?" Luke demanded, waving his pen around.

"No… but send him somewhere that they can take care of him, somewhere that he doesn't need a ramp just to get to his own room," Lorelai pleaded.

"Drop it," Luke barked gruffly, stopping his writing for a moment in warning.

"Why don't you ask him?" she suggested, pointing at the room. The nurse chose that moment to inch her way over with the numbers.

"How long before he wakes up?" Luke requested, pointing at the door with his shaking hand. The writing on the pages was barely legible, but apparently it was still legal.

"He probably won't be awake today, sir," she told him, looking at the door cautiously, like it would bite her.

"Great, here are your forms," Luke told her, handing the clipboard to her and giving her a tight smile.

"So that's it," Lorelai demanded, pointing at the forms that were walking away with the nurse.

"No, that's not it. Now I have to call these guys and have them install a ramp leading to the diner… and one of those… things… up the stairs, and for the bathroom, and he'll probably need something by his bed," Luke listed off distractedly, thinking of how much work had to be done in such a short amount of time.

"Luke…" Lorelai growled, shaking him back into the present.

"What?" he snapped, turning to look at her, disbelieving of her determination on this matter. "Do you really expect me to turn him out on the streets when he needs me? When he's told me that he needs me, and that he wants my help?"

"No, I thought that you'd at least think about what you're doing! You've never dealt with a drug addicted teenager before, and you've sure as hell never deal with a drug-addicted teenager who also happens to be paralyzed!" she screamed.

"This is my problem! It's not yours. You have your choice. If you want me, he comes with!" Luke shouted, shoving his finger in the direction of the door.

"I don't want him, I want you!" she stabbed her finger into his chest, knocking him back a little bit. Luke was about to shout something back, but his mind clouded over and he stumbled back a little bit more, trying to catch onto something, but finding himself falling to the ground instead.

-gGg-

When Luke woke up, he frowned and looked around a little bit. It couldn't have been too long, Lorelai was still there and the sun still appeared to be in the general same area in the sky. Sighing, he took in his surroundings. He was in a hospital bed, Jess was right beside him.

"Why am I here?" he mumbled.

"You passed out from exhaustion. How long has it been since you've slept?" she reprimanded him tiredly.

"Three days?" He mumbled and tried to sit up.

"They restrained you," she muttered, rolling her eyes. He felt his arms and found that they were, indeed, restrained.

"Why?" he asked in a panicked voice, but his body was too tired to panic.

"If Jess was any indication of your family, they didn't want you getting loose… the blond nurse also thought that it was the only way that they could get you to sleep," Lorelai mumbled. "Besides, I think she likes to see you struggle. All these nurses are sadists."

"Hey," Luke objected, glaring at her, but the playful flirting that would normally encompass that comment was non-existent in her body language.

"So you're really going to do this all over again?" Lorelai sighed out, looking at Jess's bed with disdain on her face.

"I'm really going to help him this time," Luke assured her, turning his head to look at Jess as well. "Can you help me out of this?"

"I'll call a nurse," Lorelai told him and stood up. She looked down at him, obviously upset, and kissed his forehead. "Goodbye, Luke."

"Lorelai?" he asked, frowning as she walked away. "Lorelai!"

He continued shouting for a minute, before he realized that she wasn't coming back. Something deep inside him stung and he nodded as if accepting it and turned to look at his nephew again, who he had now sacrificed everything for. He didn't want to be the bad guy, but something in him wondered if it was really worth it.

-gGg-

Jess woke up in a dark room. He didn't know how long he'd been out, only that it had been drug induced and that his body was now aching for his old ways again, and if he had the chance, or the ability, he probably would have gone back. But he was in a wheelchair now. There was no way to make money as a runner in a wheelchair. It just didn't happen.

He looked around a little bit and saw Luke in the bed next to him. Frowning, he absently wondered why the hell his uncle had been restrained, but he brushed off the thought and went back to brooding in his own misery. Sure, misery loved company, but the company had to at least be conscious.

"Mr. Mariano?" a nurse inquired as she stepped into the room, letting a bit of the harsh hospital light spill into the room. The brief flash of light hurt his eyes and he cringed.

"Yeah?" he rasped, his voice sounding low and gravelly from sleep.

"When your uncle wakes up, you will be taken back to Stars Hollow to live with him. We wanted to make sure that this was what you wanted before we sign the final release form. Did you have any other family that you would rather live with?" she asked formally.

His mind scrolled through other names, other faces. There was his mother, his father, but neither of them were ready, or willingly, to take on a wheelchair-bound son. No matter how many different faces his mind provided him with, he kept returning again and again to Luke. Sighing, he shook his head and turned away.

"So we'll have the final forms signed by the hospital, but we'll need your signature here as well. This states that you will be under your uncle's care until you have had proper training and are able to care for yourself. We suggest that you spend at least a year with someone before moving out on your own," she said quietly, carefully, knowing about his outburst from the other nurses.

"Give me the form and get out," he snapped, holding his hand for the clipboard.

"Of course," she stammered and handed him the papers. He grabbed them roughly out of her hands and scratched his name on the 'x-ed' line before shoving them back towards her.

With a sickly-sweet, but dangerous, smile, he nodded at her and said: "Thank you." She nodded at him nervously and rushed from the room.

He felt a little bit bad for scaring her, but most of his feeling was devoted towards bitterness. Parts of him were finding others to blame. Everyone from his mother to Luke to Rory… but mostly, and he knew this, it was just himself he had to blame. He adjusted the pillows behind him so he could sit up easier and just stared at the wall in front of him, beckoning it to give him some answers. Such as: 'What the hell am I going to do now?'

He scoffed at his own pathetic questions and looked down at the ground. It was giving him any answers either, so he looked towards the door. There was a button beside the bed and he hesitated, but pressed it softly.

The nurse entered back into the room, looking at him in fear. He attempted a smile to lighten the situation, but she just cowered more. He cursed himself for scaring her and shook his head at himself.

"Bring me a chair," he requested.

"A chair?" she repeated, eyes wide.

"Bring me a fucking wheelchair," he snarled, and she nodded with an 'eep' and ran from the room. Absently, he wondered how new she was.

When it was rolled into the room, the only thing he could think of was how this thing was his enemy until he was fixed. The nurses helped him slide into the chair. It felt weird, cold, beneath him. Sighing, he bit back his tears as they adjusted his legs into the chair and fitted him in.

"Thanks," He mumbled bitterly and stared to try to roll himself around. They stood back and watched as he slammed into a few different things before finally getting the hang of it and rolling out of the door and around the hallway. A few minutes later, a scruffy looking Luke emerged from the room and gazed at him.

"Hey," Jess greeted with a bobbing of his head.

"Hey," Luke said back, and they stood there and stared at each other. Jess broke contact first, turning away. "Home?"

"Home," Jess nodded and Luke moved awkwardly behind the wheelchair to push him towards the room again to grab their things. The trip involved quite a bit of slamming into things that probably would have hurt his legs, could he have felt anything. There was no talking on the way out of the hospital or to the diner… or at all. There was an unspoken agreement not to talk about this. That way neither of them would have to attempt to console the other, because both of them knew that they were stuck together, whether they liked it or not, and complaining wasn't going to do a damn thing.


	6. Undone

**A/N: GET READY FOR IT!!! Next chapter is where Rory finally enters into the equation. I gave this chapter as a double update because I know I've been evil with the updating thing. Besides... it was already have written and I was feeling lazy. I hope that you like it, I know that it's a filler. Don't hate me, don't kill me... besides, how, then, would I continue to write? SEE, SEE!!!! Stealthy! BWAHAHA.**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Six**

**Undone**

**Rated T**

"I don't want them to see the chair," Jess stated as they entered into Stars Hollow. The, formerly empty, diner was now absolutely packed with people waiting to get in, probably to oogle the only member of Stars Hollow to merit an ambulance in years.

"Do you want me to carry you in?" Luke scoffed, but then looked at Jess, who looked dead serious.

"I could pretend to be unconscious," Jess suggested weakly, looking at the eyes of the people waiting there. It was almost two in the morning, but people had brought tents. Talk about determined. Jess sighed and placed his head in his hands.

"It won't be that bad," Luke attempted to console him. "I can keep the diner closed for a few days, until the elevator is installed… and we can open after that. You can keep helping me, pouring coffee."

"I'm in a wheelchair, Luke! I can't pour coffee in a fucking wheelchair!" Jess shouted, and it attracted a few stares towards the car. "Just, get me out of here. I don't give a fuck what you do, just… get me away from them."

"Okay," Luke nodded solemnly, not knowing how to console the boy.

As Luke stepped out of the truck, a circle of people surrounded him, waiting for some sort of news. He ignored them all and walked to Jess's side. The door was opened and Jess nodded unhappily. He staggered from the truck and leaned heavily on his uncle's shoulder, unable to move his legs at all. Luke helped him by carrying him into the diner in a way that might have looked like walking in the dark. When they got inside, Jess stumbled onto a chair and pondered throwing a salt shaker across the room.

"That wasn't that bad," Luke muttered, looking out the window carefully to make sure that none of them were poking at the tarp-covered wheelchair in the back.

"You know… four years ago, when I first came here… I thought that this place was hell. I literally couldn't figure out a way that it could be worse," Jess stated, looking absently out the window. "I think I just found it."

"Come on… at least they think it's only temporary," Luke attempted again.

"They think, but they think they can cure cancer too. Yet billions of people die from cancer every day," Jess sighed, leaning back on his chair a little bit and glaring down at his legs miserably. "I want to go upstairs."

"Okay," Luke nodded and lifted Jess into his arms. Jess looked away, unable to look at someone while they were literally carrying him like a baby.

"Thanks," Jess muttered as he was placed on the bed that he'd spent the last week festering on. "You don't need to close the diner… just bring the wheelchair and a typewriter."

"A typewriter?" Luke repeated, looking at all the pages on the ground. "You finished one of them?"

"Yeah," Jess nodded. "That's when this happened."

"Oh…" Luke trailed off, nodding and backed away uncomfortably. "Goodnight?"

"Goodnight," Jess confirmed with a slight incline of his head.

-gGg-

The morning arose, but Jess hadn't slept. Luke had gotten his wheelchair from the car when it seemed like most people were sleeping. No one had bothered to ask what the large, tarp covered object was anyway… in fact, no one was saying anything. They were just staring, waiting, watching. It was starting to creep him out.

After the wheelchair had been brought up, he'd spent the rest of the night typing until his fingers were sore. Luke had gotten so frustrated with the noise that he'd left… somewhere. Jess wanted to apologize, but he was too frustrated. His situation was a mixture of bad and worse. Not only was his body shaking and his mind cracking, but now he had to do it all with the inability to walk. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair. The delicate, thanks to hours of typing, pads scraped along his stubble and he cringed.

Sighing, he looked at the bed and then looked at the door. Luke hadn't been back for hours, he was probably still sleeping… he probably would be for hours. Jess rolled himself over to the bed and looked between himself and it with more frustration. Undoing the straps would be easy, it would be the whole 'don't fall out of the chair as you're going onto the bed' thing that would screw him over. Taking a deep breath, he lifted himself and used his arms to throw himself onto the bed.

The landing was rough, but at least he'd made it. Pulling himself with his arms, he fought back tears and lifted his legs onto the bed, glaring at them angrily. Parts of him wished that they would just be gone… no longer some dead weight that he'd have to carry around, but that was just the bitterness talking. Luke was going to be making him two million appointments that day with different doctors to try to get the nerves repaired, but there wasn't much hope left in him. He just wanted to disappear, but he knew that it wouldn't be happening. He couldn't drive, he couldn't walk… he was stuck.

-gGg-

Luke stepped quietly into the apartment above the diner. Jess was already asleep, the wheelchair sitting beside the bed at an awkward angle. Obviously Jess had crawled there himself. A part of Luke felt sorry that he wasn't there to help, but another knew that Jess had to be independent as well. Sighing, he closed the apartment's door softly and meandered over to the type writer. What had seemed like thousands of papers lying around was being condensed into a type-written manuscript. Already over half the pages had been typed down. Luke had helped in the gathering the previous day.

Lorelai had called… they had talked some more. It was official. They were over, the wedding was called off. She didn't want to deal with Jess, and he couldn't leave the kid. Taking off his baseball cap, he threw it absently across the room and sat on his own bed. He'd tried to sleep at a motel, and it had worked for a few hours, but he'd needed to get home to check on Jess. Running a hand through his hair, he lay back and stared up at the ceiling, wondering how the hell things were going to run now.

-gGg-

Jess stared at the working men. Luke had called them last week and they were now finishing the installation of an elevator, so-to-speak, for him to get up the stairs. It was perfectly functional for him to use on his own, which he was grateful for. All it needed was a bit of careful maneuvering. He was going to see the chiropractor in two days and the doctors had already been contacted. Specialist upon specialist and consultant upon consultant; they had over twenty appointments for next week. Luke had shut the diner down especially for him, not wanting the stress of it lying over their heads.

"The bathroom's done?" Jess heard Luke rant, and he watched with a growing self-hatred as his uncle paced in the bedroom. Rolling himself out of the apartment's landing, he went back into the room and in front of his typewriter, where he concentrated on anything but Luke's pacing… on Luke walking… on Luke going up and down the stairs, on Luke's ability to move without a wheelchair.

"Can you stop pacing?" Jess snapped, glaring at Luke, who froze.

"Sorry…" Luke sighed and sat down on his bed, where he began to fidget.

"Why don't you go follow him around… downstairs?" Jess muttered, still being distracted by Luke's movements.

"Yeah, good idea!" Luke agreed and rushed out of the apartment, past the working guys, and down into the diner. The windows had been covered with paper so no one could see inside. The door was claiming that it was being shut down for renovations… which, technically, it was.

Jess started typing the last few pages up. There were maybe ten more to go. Only ten more pages before the last thing he'd been doing before he'd lost his legs was finished. In a way, the story was a form of venting. It was his curse and his blessing. Sighing, he typed the last word and ripped the paper out from the machine. A neat stack of the pages lay on the table beside him, and he added the last one with a sense of freedom.

"Luke?" he shouted down the stairs, rolling onto the landing again.

"What?" Luke growled in return and walked to the bottom of the stairs, staring up at him.

"It's done," Jess stated with a small smile.

"Really?" Luke asked in disbelief and raced up the stairs, past the disgruntled workers.

"Do you think that we could… I don't know, mail it off or something?" Jess inquired insecurely.

"Don't you want to go over it or something? I mean… you typed it all pretty quickly, Jess… that's a lot of typing," Luke looked a bit nervous.

"Yeah, but it's only seventy pages. I just… want it to be gone," Jess sighed, looking at the ground.

"Sure, we can mail it," Luke nodded, wanting to get Jess's mind off his legs. "Did you have anywhere in mind?"

"I heard about this little place in Philadelphia last week. I got the address from Andrew," Jess rolled over to the night table beside his bed and pulled out the address.

"Great, then I'll go down to Doose's and get a box for it," Luke suggested with a tight smile, which Jess attempted to return. They stared awkwardly for a moment before Luke turned and ran out of the room. Jess ran a hand through his hair and rolled back over to the table. It was amazing that over five hundred pages were able to be condensed into seventy with the aid of a type writer. He smirked a little bit and shuffled through the pages again. He rolled them over in his hands and placed them back on the table.

-gGg-

"Jess!" Luke shouted, running up the stairs with a large package in his hand. It had been almost three weeks since they'd gotten back from the hospital. Almost three weeks that the diner had been closed and they'd been going to endless specialists and doctors, all of them trying to figure out a 'cure', but Jess was still in the chair and no results had come as of yet. The only good news was the package… and even that had the possibility of being terrible.

"What?" Jess growled in return from his lair above the diner.

"It's here!" Luke exclaimed and rushed up the stairs to the apartment. The elevator was installed, the ramp was installed, and the entire house was now wheelchair-accessible. It had been expensive, and was continuing to be expensive, but Luke didn't mind. So long as Jess was comfortable and they were both living easy enough, it was all for the greater good. Unfortunately, he was going to have to open the diner soon. They were running out of money.

"What?" Jess rolled into the landing to greet him. Luke beamed and tossed the book into Jess's lap, grabbing the handles of the wheelchair and rolling him back into the apartment.

"Open it," Luke suggested, rolling Jess over to one of the beds and sitting down on it so that he could see over the boy's shoulder as it was opened.

Jess didn't say anything, didn't ask for encouragement or give himself time to doubt. Luke admired that and waited just as impatiently for the last piece of packaging to be ripped off. Inside was the hardcover copy of Jess's book… The Subsect stood with all its glory.

"Wow," Luke muttered, gazing down at it.

"They printed it fast," was all Jess said as he turned the book over in his hands. There were two more beneath it.

"How many did they print?" Luke inquired.

"I don't know… I guess a few. They told me that they'd send me three," Jess muttered absently and opened one of them.

"I'm proud of you," Luke informed him with a small smile.

"Thanks," Jess smiled in return, and then the smile turned into a frown.

"What?" Luke deadpanned, not liking the look.

"Nothing," Jess shrugged and turned away. "You need to open the diner."

"Yeah, I do," Luke agreed, looking down at his hands.

"I can pour coffee," Jess suggested with a shrug.

"The tables aren't far enough apart," Luke sighed.

"It's so much fun to be useless," Jess mused bitterly and rolled away. Luke would have followed… would have said something helpful, witty, bright, but there was nothing. It was difficult enough that Jess battled with his withdrawals, but having to deal with the withdrawals with a wheelchair above that was making it hell.

"I want to see her, Luke," Jess finally said.

"Who?" Luke questioned, but then it occurred to him as Jess was rolling around.

"Rory… I want to see Rory," Jess stated evenly, but Luke could see the edges of his nephew's carefully made up composure crumbling a little bit.

"Is that a good idea?" Luke coughed, not wanting Jess to jump off the deep end again.

"I don't care, I need to see her," Jess continued, rolling towards him so that they were almost eye-to-eye.

"Okay, okay… how about I take you into Hartford next week? I'll go… do something, and you can call me when you want to be picked up?" Luke grumbled, recognizing his nephew's 'determined look' when it was right in front of his face.

Jess nodded, but didn't say anything else. He rolled towards the stairs and then stopped. "I want to go outside… I want to go out," Jess admitted shakily.

"Then go," Luke shrugged. "Everything's there for you. The world's out there and it's no different than it was a month ago."

"A month ago it was a lot less scary," Jess admitted and rolled the rest of the way to the elevator. The locks clicked into place and Luke watched as the boy was lifted down the stairs. Luke followed slowly as Jess continued to hesitate on the entire way to the door. With the exception of their appointments, which Jess never went outside in his wheelchair for, he hadn't been outside. Luke had attempted to suggest it a few times, but they had all been brushed off rudely with different excuses. Now, apparently, they were finally going to take this step.

"Be careful," Luke mumbled as Jess opened the door and rolled into the sunlight.

-gGg-

The world was still there, like Luke said. The stairs that had previously been in front of Luke's had been paved over and extended into the sidewalk a bit more to create a ramp. The ramp was for him, so he would be able to leave and return at will. Jess blinked back any emotions and stared out at the city. Most of the people who were long-part of the town stopped their movements when they saw him.

Jess ignored them and rolled down the ramp. He rolled onto the streets and pushed himself away from the town, towards the school… towards the only place in Stars Hollow that held any meaning to him. A small crowd followed him, gossiping as they went.

As the bridge finally came into view, he stopped and smiled at it. The smile wasn't bitter… it wasn't overly emotional, it was just there. This was the pace that he'd stolen Rory away from Dean. This was the place that Luke had shoved him into the lake. This was his refuge, his home away from home. It was one of the last places he'd gone while he could still walk. With that sobering thought, he rolled the final way onto its planks and into the middle.

Appropriate, then, that it was the first place he go outside in his wheelchair. The smile turned a little bit bitter as the chair invaded into his thoughts, but he ignored them and watched the sun. Absently, he snatched a book out of a small pouch on the side of the chair and started reading. It was The Subsect, the first time that he was reading it since he'd gotten a copy. Today was a day of firsts, but tomorrow… tomorrow would be a day to remember.


	7. Meetings

**A/N: GET READY!!! In the next two hours, I'm going to be posting two or three chapters on this fic. Please review a LOT to keep me going. This is the only thing that's keeping me alive during work. **

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Seven**

**Meetings**

**Rated T**

He hovered… God-help-him, he hovered. Luke had dropped him off at one o'clock, it was now six… and Rory had finally gotten home. He sat beside her driveway and watched her for a few seconds, his chest tight and his breathing difficult, but he knew that he had to do this. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, he opened the gate slightly and leaned forwards so that she wouldn't see the wheelchair.

She turned around at the sound of the gate opening and the look on her face made breathing a little bit easier. It was a mixture of shock and happiness. He was glad that she wasn't staring at him like some sort of monster… not like last time.

"Jess," she gasped, the happiness oozing into her voice. He smiled at her, but it was more of a grimace, and wheeled his way into the driveway.

Her face changed, like magic. The pleasant shock was soon replaced by concerned, confused horror. He nodded inwardly, having known that the reaction was coming.

"Oh my God," she whispered under her breath, but he heard it.

"Hey," he said lightly, trying not to let her gasping affect his happiness at seeing her. But he couldn't lie to himself… it hurt.

"Oh my God," she repeated, walking towards him slowly. "What happened?"

"Ah… nothing," he shrugged it off, waving his hand through the air as though cleaning it of a bad smell.

"Jess, this isn't nothing!" she replied, almost frantic.

"Rory!" he began, but took a deep breath and calmed himself down before he started yelling at her. "Sorry… but I came here to talk… and this isn't my favorite topic, is there somewhere we could go? To talk?"

"Yeah, sure… I'm sorry," Rory stammered and danced a little bit.

"It's early… have you eaten at all?" he asked with a small smirk, trying to put her at ease.

"No, I mean… normally I'd eat here, but that's okay. I don't really know anywhere, though," she rambled, and he attempted not to laugh at her. She was almost as nervous as he was.

"It's okay… just, not anything with food in its title," he shrugged.

"What do you mean?" she inquired with a scrunched nose.

"No olives, no gardens… no plantations," he clarified.

"Sure, sounds good," she stumbled, her eyes were still on the wheelchair. "Can you… I mean, do you…?"

"How far's the college district?" he cut her off.

"About a mile," she sounded ashamed, like she should be able to move it closer.

"S'okay. I'll call a bus," he attempted to reassure her.

"A bus… Jess… what happened?" she pressed hand gently on his shoulder. He attempted that smile-grimace again and looked away, gently pushing her hand off his shoulder. It burned the skin beneath his jacket.

"Hey… we have all night. Aren't you supposed to serenade me before we get to the hard questions?" he evaded and pulled out a cell phone from the second pocket of his wheelchair. The other held his book, three copies of it. One of them had her name on it, but he was still gaining up the courage to give it to her.

"Yeah… sure, okay… I guess we could meet by the Olive Garden," she offered, obviously flustered. The small smile she gave him was a shadow of the smile he used to be able to conjure when they were teenagers.

"Great," he smiled at her and opened his cell phone. The number for the bus had been ingrained in his memory. It was one of the first things he'd bothered to memorize when he'd been given the list of 'Important Numbers'.

"How long before it gets here?" she asked, shuffling on her feet and staring at him in concern.

"Not too long, maybe five minutes," he shrugged and smirked. It was nice to see that she was concerned… at least she hadn't totally forgotten about him.

"Good… I'll just, wait here with you until it gets here," she offered, and he nodded mutely. What could he say? I love you, even though you drove me to be a drug addict for two years, and eventually I lost the use of my legs because of you? No… it didn't have a nice ring. "So what are you doing back here?" She beat him to it.

"I've been here for awhile," he evaded. "Thought I'd stop by."

"How'd you know where I was?" she asked a bit suspiciously.

"Luke mentioned it… I talked to your mom a little bit," he shrugged, and decided that he wanted a topic change. "So what are you doing here? Isn't it a bit of a drive to Yale?"

"Yeah… it is," she echoed his smile-grimace, and he attempted to keep down the anger boiling in his veins. He'd heard that she left Yale… he'd heard every tale he could possibly not want to hear about her. Everything from Dean to Logan and none of it amused him.

"So why're you here?" he pressed, eyeing her.

"Because I'm not going anymore," she sighed. "Luke didn't tell you?"

"Oh… he told me, I just had to hear it from you," Jess grumped, shaking his head in disbelief and attempting a smile.

She didn't say anything, barely looked at him. Her eyes were glued to the ground, obviously ashamed with her words. "But it's all temporary," she finally reasoned.

"Temporary?" he repeated.

"Yeah, just… until I find out what I want to do with my life," she smiled at him, attempting to be convincing. It wasn't working.

"I thought that we'd already decided that you were going to be an overseas correspondent," Jess reminded her.

"Yeah, but I never did get my help," she responded, a small, but real, smile on her lips.

"My tutor didn't exactly work out too well. We got a bit distracted before I could learn that second language," he continued.

"I think I read about that… had something to do with a crash, didn't it?" she mocked.

"Well at least we know that you're prepared for one of those," he shot back, and they gave each other real smiles.

Headlights appeared at the end of the road and Jess rolled forward a little bit, breaking the moment. Unfortunately, as they got nearer, it was obvious that this was not a bus, but a car, a Porsche, to be exact. A frown appeared on his face and he rolled back quickly to avoid being hit. A sharp look at Rory earned him an apologetic shrug. The door to the Porsche opened in a stream of light and a man, who Jess could only guess was Logan, emerged.

"Logan, hi!" Rory greeted, almost grimacing and shuffled on her feet. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd swing by after class," he informed her as he swaggered over, giving Jess a dirty look as he moved. Jess kept his face impassive, not wanting to intrude on Rory and her boyfriend. "Who's this?"

"Oh… Logan, this is Jess. Jess, this is Logan, my boyfriend," she stammered, obviously not happy.

"Huh," Jess muttered, but didn't offer anything else.

"We were just going out for dinner," Rory muttered. Jess knew it was a mistake the moment the words were out of her mouth.

"Ah… do you mind company?" Logan asked, but the look in his eye stated that he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

"No, of course not!" Rory shook her head and looked at Jess.

"Can I talk to you for a minute… alone?" Jess asked Rory, nodding towards the road.

"Sure," she nodded and followed him slowly as he wheeled out of the yard and onto the shoulder.

"Dinner doesn't matter. I just wanted to give you something," he shrugged, taking out her book and handing it to her.

"What's this?" she inquired upon receiving her odd gift. A few scans of the front page finally brought her eyes up to his. "The Subsect, by Jess Mariano?"

"Yeah… I got it yesterday," he told her lifelessly. Any excitement, pride, which he might have had in telling her that, was destroyed when Logan stepped into the picture.

"You wrote a book?" she gasped.

"It's a short novel," he shrugged, looking away.

"You wrote a book!" she repeated, louder.

"Yeah, hard to believe, isn't it?" he snapped, shaking his head and staring at the headlights coming towards them. "This is my ride."

"Jess… can we talk, again, I mean?" Rory asked as the bus got nearer.

"I'm half an hour away. I've been living in Luke's since… well, for the past month," he informed her, feeling the slightest bit of hope in his heart. He desperately attempted to destroy the feeling, but it wasn't going away. Damn her, she was making him fall for her all over again and they hadn't even really talked yet.

"Luke's?" she repeated, the slightest bit of tension and fear in her voice.

"Yeah… remember, the diner? You used to come, drink coffee, I used to work there?" he mocked.

"Funny," she scoffed and the bus stopped right in front of them, seeing its target.

"See you later," he told her, not giving her a way out.

"I'll come see you tomorrow," she assured him and he nodded, smiling slightly and staring at the gate, where Logan was waiting for her.

Jess rolled into his seat, allowed the driver to buckle him in, and then waited. The ride back to Stars Hollow was uneventful. It was twenty minutes for him to beat himself up over things that he could have, should have, said. Starting with voicing his burning hatred of Logan, which didn't have anything to do with Logan himself, but everything that the stupid idiot stood for… and what was Rory doing with that arrogant dick anyway?

Absently, he yanked out his cell phone and called Luke. "Hey," he greeted, his eyes glassy and his voice hollow.

"I'm taking it by your cheerful voice and happy greeting that you've seen her?" Luke grumbled.

"And her shadow," Jess sighed, his uncle's attempt at sarcasm bringing him back into the present.

"Her shadow?" Luke repeated, obviously not understanding the reference.

"Logan," Jess replied simply.

"Ah… so the meeting didn't go as planned," it was a statement, not a question.

"She said that she'll come see me tomorrow… at the diner," Jess mused.

"In Stars Hollow?" this time it was a question.

"Yeah," Jess nodded, even though there was no one to see him.

"Where are you?" Luke said instead of commenting on Rory being back in Stars Hollow.

"I'm in a bus on my way to Stars Hollow," Jess informed him and looked out the window.

"So I don't have to come get you?" Luke seemed grateful for this.

"Nah… I'll roll the rest of the way home. I could use the exercise," Jess shrugged.

"Call if you need me," Luke reminded him warily.

"I'm not going to pass out on the middle of a street and get hit by a random semi coming through Stars Hollow," Jess growled uncomfortably.

"I know, I know… I just don't want you to get hurt," Luke reminded him uncomfortably, and a moment of silence followed.

"Thanks," Jess stated instead of some sort of smart-ass comment.

"You're welcome," Luke answered back, and it was obvious that there was quite a bit of shock in his voice.

"Bye, Luke," Jess muttered and hung up the phone. He continued to stare out of the window as the scenery passed by them, too fast for him to even contemplate it.


	8. Habits

**A/N: Methinks this'll be the longest chapter in the entire series. This is to clear the air and to add a bit more suspense. This is your drama for the next chapter... because I'm pretty sure the next one's going to be a helluvalot of filler. Enjoy it.**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Eight**

**Habits**

**Rated T**

Jess emerged from the bus ride exhausted. The lights were on in the diner, beckoning him home, to rest, to think… to wait and anticipate. He loved her so much that his blood was racing with the need to see her again, just to… hear her voice. Closing his eyes, he forced his breathing down and attempted to calm his beating heart.

"Are you okay/" the driver asked as Jess hesitated, almost as though he was going to keel over at any second.

"I'm fine," Jess attempted, but the words were slurred. His vision blurred as he felt a pang of need run through him. Every pin-prick where a needle touched his arm stung and burnt, crying to be used again, but he attempted to ignore them and rolled himself as straight as he could, toward Luke's.

He made it into the middle of the street, trying to cross to get to the diner. There, the world spun and he lost his grip on the wheels. His body was shaking intolerably and his eyes started to water.

"Luke!" he cried, trying to get his uncle's attention.

-gGg-

Luke was watching the bus out of the corner of his eye. He saw Jess get out and felt confident that his nephew was doing okay. The scowl on the kid's face, visible even from this far, was generally a signal of well-being. Thus, he turned to help his last few customers of the dinner rush. A faint cry and a few screams finally drew his attention to the window again.

Jess was in the middle of the street, in his wheelchair, shaking. The plates Luke was carrying tipped from his fingers and poured on the floor as shock ran through is system. It lasted less than a second before he was out of the diner and in the middle of the street, shoving back the crowd and trying to help his nephew. The wheel chair was un-braked and rocking. As carefully as he could, trying not to tip the chair, he unlocked his nephew's legs and carefully laid his seizing body on the ground, taking off his own jacket to place beneath the younger man's head.

"Is he okay?" asked a few people fro the crowd.

"What's the matta, suga?" Babette leaned over Luke's shoulder to see Jess.

"It's nothing," Luke rebuked them roughly, still disliking most of the town for their treatment of Jess upon his first returning.

"Taylor called an ambulance," Kirk informed him emotionlessly.

"Great," Luke grumbled under his breath. More hospital bills that they probably couldn't afford anymore.

When Jess's body finally stopped shaking, his eyes didn't open and he didn't seem to regain consciousness. A few people left on the edges of the crowd, but the hardcore Stars Hollow residents remained to make sure that Jess was okay.

"Is there anything we can do?" Patty asked with genuine concern in her voice.

"Can someone roll his chair out of the street?" Luke asked, distracted, and lifted Jess into his arms. He moved him carefully onto the sidewalk and continued to crouch beside him, trying to support him as best he could.

"Here, suga," Babette said, giving him a cup of water.

"Thanks," Luke was grateful, he really was, but he also happened to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Gently, he prodded Jess's lips open and gave him a little bit of water. The boy's throat swallowed instinctively.

"Taylor told me to tell you that the ambulance told him that they'd be here soon!" Kirk announced, Luke hadn't even noticed him leaving, but he must have been the one to take the wheelchair away. No on else in his direct vision had moved.

"Huh?" Luke muttered, barely hearing anything beyond the pounding in his ears.

"The ambulance'll be here soon," Babette translated.

"Good, great, thanks," Luke repeated his little mantra of the past few minutes, making sure that Jess was as comfortable as possible.

"Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?" Patty questioned again, looking over his shoulder. "He's so cute when he sleeps."

"Almost like a baby," Babette continued.

"He's not a baby," Luke objected, knowing how much Jess would dislike this conversation.

"Of course he isn't," Patty amended sympathetically.

"Where's that ambulance?" Luke growled loudly, looking everywhere for flashing lights and observed Kirk dashing away back towards Taylor's.

"Who's watchin' the diner?" Babette asked curiously, looking at the open door.

"Damnit!" Luke cursed, realizing that he was the only one working and that it was now left unattended.

"Don't worry, Babette and I will take care of it until you get back," Patty patted his back and her and Babette went over to stand in front of the door like two large guard dogs, making sure that no one went in and taking people's money who left.

Luke felt a wave of relief run over him at that. True, he wouldn't have left it to them under normal circumstances, but these were anything but normal. Kirk ran back over to him, his face emotionless and his movements very precise.

"Taylor told me to tell you that he can't reach the ambulance again, but that he sees flashing lights on the end of town with my night-vision goggles," Kirk announced.

"Thanks," Luke muttered again and turned to see the lights himself, even more relief washing over him. The doctors had told him that this part was over… that the worst part was over. Jess hadn't seized in over two weeks. Sighing, he stood as the ambulance stopped dead in front of them.

"I'm here for a Jess Mariano," the man announced and Luke pointed down at Jess. "What's the situation?"

"He seized… he's been going through withdrawal, drug withdrawal, and he has spinal damage. Paralyzed… from the waist down," Luke informed the man shakily, who stared at him with a mixture of amazement and disbelief.

"Sounds like this kid's got a rough life," the man muttered, his eyes dashing around a bit. "Not exactly the place for a druggie."

"He's from New York," Luke supplied, and the man nodded like that solved everything. Luke was then forced back and made to follow the ambulance, yet again, to the hospital.

-gGg-

"Doctor, I thought that you told me this was over," Luke muttered, motioning at Jess's form lying in a bed beside them. It was over five hours later and they still didn't know what had caused the seizure, let alone this strange comatose-like state.

"We thought that it was. Has your nephew been exposed to any of his former habits? Was he around something that reminded him of the drugs? A needle perhaps or maybe he took some painkillers that were like the ones he got high off of back in New York?" the doctor asked, but Luke could only shake his head, the solution coming to him quickly.

"No, it as nothing like that," Luke brushed off and went to Jess's side.

"You know what caused this?" the doctor frowned, hovering over his shoulder.

"Yeah…" Luke trailed off, not supplying the doctor with anymore information.

"Mr. Danes, I am trying to help you and your nephew. I cannot do that if you keep important details from me," the man sighed, obviously frustrated with Luke and Jess's tendency to keep their cards close.

"Rory," Luke said simply.

"Rory?" the doctor repeated with a frown, not understanding.

"His ex-girlfriend," Luke attempted, but he really didn't know how to describe any more than that.

"Why would she cause this?" The doctor asked, even more confused.

"It was after a fight that he left… that he started… doing…. that," Luke continued, but still fumbled over the words.

"After a fight with his girlfriend, he began doing drugs?" the doctor rephrased.

"Ex-girlfriend, they weren't-aren't-dating," Luke amended.

"So why would that cause this attack?" the man still didn't seem to be seeing the big picture.

"He went to see her, Rory, today. He was just getting off the bus when he seized again," Luke stated, not fumbling over the words, just disliking having to say them.

"Ah… she's the catalyst," the doctor nodded, as though it wasn't that unusual. "He shouldn't be seeing her, then."

"You try telling him that," Luke grumbled, shaking his head.

"He should understand that he cannot see her if it's bad for his health," the doctor frowned, unable to understand why people were unable to keep away from things that hurt them.

"Do you smoke?" Luke asked in frustration, trying to figure out a way to describe the Gilmore-habit that the Danes men had a tendency to take on.

"No," the doctor replied, and Luke saw the man's eyes crinkle in confusion.

"The Gilmore women are like cigarettes. Every time you see them, you think that's the last time you'll hurt yourself like that, and then they show up again… and again, and again. After awhile, you want to see them so badly that you'd literally bash your head into a wall if it meant they'd stop to make sure you're okay," Luke explained passionately, thinking of his own relationship with Lorelai. "The only way to stop it is to stop seeing them… ever. Jess tried, but it didn't work."

"So this Rory is his addiction?" the doctor summarized.

"Yeah… she's his addiction," Luke agreed, brushing a bit of the hair from Jess's face.

"Then Jess cannot, must not, see her… ever. If he's ever going to kick his habit, then he needs to clear his system, even his mind," the doctor proclaimed, but Luke just shook his head bitterly.

"Don't tell that to me," Luke grumped, giving the doctor a cold shoulder and attempting to protect Jess the best he could.

-gGg-

Jess woke up to bright white lights, bad smells, and chaos around every corner. He knew it was a hospital before he even bothered opening his eyes. Sighing, he cracked his eyelids and turned his head to the side, where Luke was sitting, waiting.

"Hey," he mumbled, weakly reaching up a hand to his hair and running it through absently.

"Welcome back," Luke grumbled, but there was relief in his voice. "They thought that you might have fallen into a coma."

"How long have I been out?" Jess frowned, trying to find a clock of some sort.

"Almost twenty four hours," Luke informed him, leaning on the edge of Jess's bed.

"What time is it?" Jess groaned, his head was pounding and the track marks on his arms were still burning.

"It's seven," Luke stated, then eyed the door with worry.

"What's wrong?" Jess could only hear a rush of blood in his head, but there was the soft sound of a scuffle going on just outside his processing range. It was there, and he could acknowledge it, but his mind didn't seem to want to process it. He frowned, never having felt this before.

"I don't know, I'll be right back," Luke rumbled, but there was something in his eyes that told Jess that Luke knew precisely what was going on.

-gGg-

Luke sighed as he opened the door and saw the fiery flash of blue eyes and a mane of brown hair. Part of him longed for the older version, but he knew that there was no way the Gilmore women were getting into their lives until Jess was better, a lot better.

"Rory," he murmured, and she turned to face him, relief flooding over her features.

The nurse who was wrestling her let off when Luke came into the picture, relief flooded on her face as well. If he wasn't so tired and miserable, he would have thought it was funny. "Mr. Danes… this, Miss Gilmore," the nurse said, pointing at Rory, "is forbidden to see Jess, no?" she grumped, glaring at Rory out of the corner of her eye.

"Rory?" was called from back in the room, and Luke saw Jess struggling to get a look outside the door. He sighed and ran back into the room. Roy attempted to follow, but was quickly restrained by the nurse again, which turned into, yet another, scuffle.

"Is that Rory?" Jess asked again, trying to look outside.

"Nah, it's Lorelai. She was trying to talk to me," Luke shrugged off, hating having to lie. Jess looked at him as if being able to sweat the truth out of him, but turned away.

"You should go talk to her," Jess brushed off, as though his face didn't betray how shattered he was.

"Okay, I'll be back in a minute… don't brood the entire time I'm gone," Luke mocked, which earned him a dirty look. He couldn't help but chuckle on the way out, at least Jess was feeling good enough to scowl again.

"Mr. Danes!" the nurse shouted as she was kicked in the shins by Rory, who continued to struggle. Rory then turned around to make her dash into Jess's room and slammed right into Luke. Unceremoniously, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her away from the room, down to the cafeteria.

"The coffee here isn't that great, but you need to calm down and I need you to be holding onto something," Luke commanded, handing her a cup of coffee and paying for it himself.

"Luke?" she shook her head, eyes wide and confused, asking questions he couldn't answer yet.

"Let's go sit down," he continued to instruct gruffly.

"What's going on? Why is Jess in a wheelchair? Why is he in a hospital? Was he in some sort of accident? He said he'd been here a month, why didn't anyone tell me? I mean, it's not as though I'm a continent away, and it wasn't my choice to cut off all contact! How long has he been here, really? Did Liz send him again? What happened to California…? Luke!" her voice was gradually getting louder and louder until everyone in the cafeteria was staring at them, but he continued to ignore her until she shouted his name at the top of her lungs, shocking the busy area into silence.

"Rory, shut up!" he roared at her, and pointed at a bench. She recoiled from him, a bit of the coffee spilling on her hand. Tears flooded into her eyes and she sat, mopping at the spilt coffee meekly. "I'm sorry." He took off his cap and wrung it in his hands, unsure of how to tell her that she couldn't see Jess… probably ever again.

"I'm sorry too," she returned, eyes downcast. He sighed and sat down across the table from her and they stared at each other for a moment. "So…?"

"Jess is sick," Luke started, knowing how stupid the words sounded on his lips.

"How sick?" She asked instead of pointing out that he was stating the obvious.

"Jess is very sick," Luke sighed, looking down at the table and away from those intense blue orbs.

"I got that. What's wrong with him, 'how' is he sick?" she pleaded, leaning towards him on the table.

"Rory, please… this is hard to explain," Luke rolled his eyes away from her, trying to pick out the words. "He can't see you."

"Why?" she snapped instantly, not even giving him a second to think up an excuse.

"Because the doctor said that he can't have visitors," Luke fumbled, grabbing at straws.

"Then why are you allowed in?" she challenged.

"Family," Luke barked instantly, stiffening up and glad that his time with Jess seemed to have made him into an adept liar.

"Why did he come see me yesterday?" she drilled, glaring slightly.

"I don't know, because he's Jess," Luke shrugged, frustration. "But you can't see him anymore."

"Wait… anymore? As in, even out of the hospital?" she snapped.

"Yes, I mean no… I mean… Yes, you can't see him," Luke stammered.

"Why?" she screamed, glaring at him. "Luke! What the hell is going on!?"

"Nothing that concerns you," he shouted right back.

"It concerns Jess and that concerns me!" she shrieked.

"Why? It didn't concern you two years ago when you told him to go to hell, and it doesn't concern you now!" he hollered, standing up and marching away. "Get the hell out of this hospital, and don't come back!"

"No!" she threw her coffee at him. It bounced off the back of his head. He turned around to throttle the spirited girl when she streaked past him, running towards the unguarded side of Jess's room.

Luke mumbled quite a number of different obscenities, enough that would make Jess blush, under his breath and gave chase, hoping that all the years of caffeine would slow her down. Unfortunately, she made it to Jess's door before anyone noticed her, and had hit thrown open before a nurse came over and tackled her to the ground. Luke checked inside the room and was eternally grateful to see Jess was asleep again.

Placing an arm around Rory's waist, he lifted her off the ground, fancy dress and all, and 'escorted' her from the hospital. He plopped her outside and glared at her, breathing hard. From her position on the ground, she glared up at him with tears in her eyes.

"Why can't I see him?" she gasped.

"Because this… all of this? It's your fault," he bellowed in a fit of cold rage and turned back into the hospital. It took three steps before he finally realized what he'd said and was going to turn around to apologize, but then realized that there was a decent chance that, if she was angry at him, she wouldn't see Jess. It brightened his day a little bit, but a part of him, the part that was eternally linked to the Gilmores, sobbed in grief.


	9. Show

**A/N: I apologize... you'll know what I mean. Yes, I'm a drama queen, but this story is immensely fun. Btw, I'm not COMPLETELY ebil. Please review and I'll give you your next chapter quickly. I already have it done. cackles**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Nine**

**Show**

**Rated T**

"A week, doctor?" Luke asked incredulously, while Jess gaped in horror.

"Yes," the doctor nodded, eyeing both of them in warning.

"Besides the fact that I'm in a wheelchair, I wouldn't mind having a life and being stuck in the hospital for half of it is sorta fucking that up," Jess growled, pushing himself up weakly with his hands. They trembled beneath him, but he locked his elbows and forced himself to sit up.

"Jess," Luke reprimanded softly, shaking his head and gently shoving the younger man's elbows so that they collapsed and he with them. Jess groaned when his head hit the pillow, unable to lift it anymore.

"We don't know what chemicals are unbalanced. Even with his exposure to… this girl… he shouldn't have had such a violent attack. I believe that some of your drugs are malfunctioning and we need to run some tests and I would prefer to keep an eye on you rather than having you running around," the doctor explained.

"Running around," Jess scoffed weakly. His face was covered in sweat and it was running into his eyes, stinging them quite badly.

"Shut up," Luke reprimanded gently, wiping his nephew's head with a cloth.

"Mr. Danes, you're more than welcome to stay with your nephew. I would prefer having someone around him constantly if you could arrange it?" the doctor requested.

"Constantly?" Luke sighed, shaking his head.

"He can't… the diner," Jess groaned.

"Shut up," Luke scolded again, mopping Jess's forehead with a cloth. "I can take some time off."

"No you can't," Jess protested, even as the doctor moved to his side, a needle in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Luke asked protectively, frowning at the needle.

"It's a mild sedative," the doctor sighed, knowing their hesitancies with needles as such.

"Great," Jess moaned, but his body started shaking again.

"Go," Luke whispered urgently, grabbing onto one of Jess's hands comfortingly as the young man bit down to keep from crying out. After a few seconds, his body calmed down and his eyes closed.

"He shouldn't be alone," the doctor muttered, shaking his head and staring at Jess.

"I can have a group of people to look after him, but he's right… I do have to take care of the diner," Luke grumbled, running a hand through his hair and wringing his baseball cap.

"It's understandable," the doctor nodded, offering a tight smile as he left the room.

Luke looked at Jess's sweating form and sat down heavily, pondering how the hell their lives had come to this.

-gGg-

When Jess awoke, the room was a lot smaller than it had been when he'd been given the sedative. Painted eyes stared at him from every corner and he could only gape in horror. His room had been filled with cat figurines and gnomes. Eyes darting around, he used his arms to sit himself up and observed Miss Patty and Babette looking over some sort of magazine in a pair of seats a few meters away.

"Wha-?" he asked.

"He's awake!" Kirk reported, and Jess jumped, turning to see the strange, gangly man right above him, dressed in full black and staring at him with a night scope. Jess blinked and shook his head, praying that this was some sort of drug-induced dream.

"How ya feelin' suga?" Babette inquired as she scuttled to his bedside.

"You were sleeping like a baby," Patty observed, patting his hand. Jess recoiled a little bit, wondering if that comment had any hidden meanings.

"Where's Luke?" Jess scrambled, feeling like curling into a ball and ignoring the drug-induced townspeople.

"At the diner," Patty told him and smiled suggestively.

"Not to put a damper on the mood or anything, but I'm paralyzed," he reminded her.

"That won't matter," she grinned, and he couldn't help but shake his head and smirk a little bit.

"So you're my babysitters?" he sighed, somewhat calming down to his fate.

"The Baby is awake, I repeat, the Baby is awake," Kirk called into his walkie talkie before falling ungracefully from his perch above Jess's bed, directly on his armored-head beside the group.

"Baby?" Jess snapped, offended.

"First it was Wheels, but Taylor said that it was tactless," Patty pouted.

"Just call me Xavier," Jess grumbled, shaking his head in frustration and sinking into his bed a little bit.

"Do you wanna play chess?" Babette asked, plopping a board in front of him.

"I want to sleep," he grumbled.

"You can be black," Patty rambled.

"I don't want to-," Jess started.

"The Baby is objecting to playing chess," Kirk relayed from his position on the ground.

"The Baby's going to kick your ass," Jess growled at him, glaring evilly.

"I thought you were paralyzed," Kirk frowned.

"I don't need my legs to bash your head in," Jess warned.

"The Baby is objecting violently," Kirk relayed with fear in his eyes.

"Get him out of here!" Jess roared, glaring at the two women, who were now playing chess by themselves a few paces away. "And when the hell did all the gnomes get brought in here?"

"Jess?" Luke asked from the door, stumbling in with food.

"Dinner!" Babette exclaimed and she, Patty and Kirk all left the room in favor of eating in the hallway. Outside food wasn't allowed in the patient's room.

"Why are they here?" Jess begged, feeling exhausted.

"Because the doctor said that you couldn't be alone, and I agreed," Luke shrugged, sitting down on the chair beside Jess's bed.

"Who's looking after the diner?" Jess inquired absently.

"Cesar," Luke shrugged.

"Did she say why she was here?" Jess queried absently.

"She?" Luke frowned, not knowing where this was coming from.

"Yeah, Rory… Lorelai doesn't go by Miss Gilmore," Jess shrugged, looking at Luke suspiciously.

"Uh…" Luke mumbled, obviously flustered.

"You told her I couldn't see her anymore… probably mentioned something about her having to do with this…" Jess continued.

"Wait…" Luke attempted to cut him off.

"She's probably been calling the diner since I've been out. Hell, she's probably tried to sneak in here," Jess ranted.

"Stop it," Luke sighed, placing his head in his hands and looking at the ground.

"I should get to choose who I want to see," Jess growled.

"'Cept that you'd choose to see her, and that'd be really good for you now wouldn't it?" Luke roared, shocking them both when the chair flew out from beneath him. They both stared at each other, eyes wide and breathing heavily, not sure what the hell just happened. "I'm sorry."

"No… it's okay," Jess whispered, turning away and trying to calm his shock. "I think I probably deserved that."

"I shouldn't have yelled at you," Luke shook his head and made to leave the room.

"Have you talked to Lorelai yet?" Jess questioned, trying to show Luke that he wasn't angry about the blow up.

"No," Luke admitted guiltily, shaking his head and stopping his speedy exit.

"Mr. Danes?" a nurse asked from the door, and both men's eyes turned to glare at her evilly.

"What?" they asked in unison, their voices matching in pitch and anger.

"Umm… you have a visitor," she stammered, pointing out the door hesitantly, looking between them.

"Oh," Luke frowned. Jess absently wondered who the hell would be visiting his uncle in the hospital.

"Luke?" Jess asked before his uncle could disappear.

"What?" Luke grumbled, looking back guiltily.

"I don't mind… I yelled at you too," Jess offered and they gave each other tight smiles as Luke made to leave again. "Wait!"

"What?" Luke grumbled, turning to frown at him again.

"How long was I out?" Jess sighed.

"Just over twenty hours," Luke checked his watch to get the right time. Jess nodded and they shared a look for a moment as Luke left the room.

-gGg-

Luke froze when he entered into the visitor's room and saw who was waiting for him. They shared a glare as he descended upon her and sat beside her.

"What do you want?" he rumbled.

"I want to see him," Rory informed him none-too-gently.

"He doesn't want to see you," Luke snapped.

"Why can I talk to him?" she cried in frustration.

"I told you why you can't talk to him!" Luke shouted, still angry at him for his words previously, but unable to take them back.

"I have called the diner twenty times trying to talk to you. I have called the hospital hundreds of times trying to talk to 'either' of you. I want to know what's going on, and I want to know how it's my fault!" she protested loudly.

"You don't need to know how. All you could do is screw him over again," Luke pointed roughly at Jess's room down the hallway, rising to glare down at her. He didn't get the height difference for very long as Rory stood up in her heeled boots and they found themselves only a few inches apart.

"I wasn't the one who left! I wasn't the one who said 'I love you' and then drove off! I wasn't the one who asked me to run away with them!" Rory screamed back at him.

"No, you were the one who trashed his heart on the phone when he called to apologize and didn't even let him talk when he wanted to and then crushed his heart in your hand when he offered it to you! What is it about you Gilmore women? Can't you understand that this world doesn't revolve around you and what you want? Jess is family, my family, and I'm not going to let your spoiled, self-centered attitudes interfere with either of our lives from now on!" Luke exploded. "First your mother and now you! Don't you understand that you're not making things better for yourselves, you're not helping anyone else and you're not changing anything! You're just hurting people, and you don't give a damn!"

"I'm not hurting anyone!" Rory screamed.

"How long has it been since you've talked to your mother?" he snapped.

"I don't know," she stammered, flustered with the question.

"How long has it been since you've seen her or come home, and talked to anyone from the town. How long has it been since you've talked to the 'little people' who brought you up? How many more hours do you have on your community service?" he listed off. "No, Rory, you're not hurting anyone."

"Stop it!" Rory shrieked at him.

"Rory… sweetheart, what're you doin' here?" Babette asked, her eyes showing a little bit of hurt with a little bit of hope.

Rory mopped at her eyes in frustration, giving Luke a death glare. "I'm here to see Jess," Rory explained, causing Luke to stiffen up.

"I didn't think ya were allowed ta see him," Babette frowned, looking at Luke.

"She's not," Luke grumbled.

"Oh," Babette nodded, looked between the two of them hesitantly and then seemed to figure it be best for her to get to the point. "Jess wants ta see ya."

"Great," Luke mumbled, moving angrily towards Luke's room.

"Luke!" Rory shouted after him, following him.

"Get out of here," he told her once more.

"No, I want to see him, I want him to tell me that he doesn't want to see me," Rory declared loudly and Luke stopped, motioning towards Jess's room.

"Be my guest," he told her angrily, causing more than a little indecision to appear on her face. When she didn't move into the room, he opened it for her and ushered her in.

Jess was sitting up in his bed, his skin pale and sweating. Apparently the drugs were still malfunctioning and he was probably about to have another attack. Nonetheless, Luke pushed Rory into the room and stood near the back, wanting to see this interaction.

-gGg-

At first, when Luke opened the door, he wasn't sure what the hell was going on. But when he saw Rory, the visitor made sense and everything was falling into place. Sighing, he attempted to get his trembling body under wraps. The doctor had just come to tell him some good news, but with Rory here, that could just as soon be gone.

"Jess," she greeted warmly, walking to the side of his bed.

"Hey," he mumbled coldly, not particularly wanting the shaking to get any worse, but it did. With every step that she took, his body trembled ten times more. "Don't come any closer."

"What?" she asked, seemingly confused.

"I can't be around you right now," Jess stated openly, his entire body giving a tremor that made him jump.

"You okay?" Luke questioned gruffly from the side of the room.

"Yeah," Jess whispered, holding up a hand weakly and turning back to Rory.

"I don't understand," Rory whispered, tears obvious in her eyes.

"I shouldn't have come to see you," he shrugged. "It was stupid. You, me, we are what we are."

"What do you mean?" she begged him, but he didn't know how much more of this he could take.

"L-Luke," he stammered as he started to shake worse and worse.

"What's happening?" Rory asked as he started to lose consciousness.

-gGg-

Luke had known that Jess would want to say this himself, but he wasn't expecting the attack.

"Kirk!" Luke shouted, seeing the man sneaking through the hallway.

"Yes?"Kirk squeaked, looking around to see who'd found him. It was almost as though he didn't suspect that people would find a black-clothed man with a pair of large binoculars around his head to be out of place.

"Get a doctor!" Luke roared, while rushing to Jess's side and trying to prevent the kid from eating his own tongue.

"What's going on?" Rory shrieked again.

"He's having a seizure, honey," he heard Patty explain.

"Get her out of here!" Luke hollered, pointing at Rory and trying to calm Jess down again.

The room went into a red-alert and Luke was taken forcefully from its confines. He was thrown into the waiting room with the rest of the town, which now included Kirk, Patty, Babette, Mory who was playing on a keyboard for comfort, Taylor who'd brought snacks and such from Doose's, and Bootsy who'd brought tabloids to keep them all busy. The odd one out was Rory, who hadn't left even when he'd shouted at her. She sat there awkwardly as everyone stared at her questioning her presence.

"You should leave," he told her, glaring.

"No," she shook her head bitterly. "If that was my fault, I'm going to make this better."

Luke sighed, grabbed her arm and dragged her to the door of the hospital once more. He threw her outside the automatic doors and stood there on the floor mat so that it wouldn't close. She looked at him desperately, pleading with him not to do this to her again.

"You can't be here right now," he stated again.

"He needs me," Rory whispered, shaking her head.

"No, what he needs right now is for you to leave him the hell alone. Go home, Rory," Luke shook his head, stepping of the mat and allowing the door to close. As he descended upon the group, everyone seemed to be expecting something. "What?"

"Jess fell into a coma," Babette cried, and he noticed for the first time that both she and Patty were opening sobbing. His face paled and he ran to the room, noticing the doctor.

"What happened?" he screamed at the man, fighting through the arms constraining him. The doctor sighed and walked away. Luke didn't accept this and went after him, pushing away anyone who tried to stop him. "What happened?!"

"Jess regained the use of his legs," the doctor sighed.

"What?" Luke gasped, his eyes widening by ten sizes.

"But his body was weak with the feeling… he was about to be sedated again when you brought her in… You were right, Mr. Danes," the doctor paused.

"What do you mean, what does that mean?" Luke begged, looking desperately at his nephew who was now hooked up to two billion machines to keep him alive.

"It was the girl," the doctor conceded and walked away again.

"What?!" Luke shouted desperately, even as the hospital's security grabbed onto his arms and forced him back into the waiting room, where the residents of Stars Hollow all leant their support to him.


	10. Home

**A/N: May I introduce you to 'Reasons - Part One, Epilogue'. This is merely the ending of the first part of the story, and then the next part will probably resume in a few months (in the story time, not in my writing time... I'm not that cruel). This was immensely fun to write, and I finally get to write in a third persons's POV instead of Luke and Jess... seeing as how I can now no longer use Jess for awhile. Although... how long? Bwahaha.**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Reasons - Part One, Epilogue**

**Chapter Ten**

**Home**

**Rated K+**

The night was cold… the air was mild and the wind was biting, or at least he thought it was. Luke couldn't really feel anything. Part of him was in that room with Jess… dying, losing himself. Bitter tears fell down his cheeks. The first tears he'd cried for his nephew. Wiping them away, he just continued to stare at the streets of Stars Hollow. He'd been driven home by someone and told to stay inside, to not go see Jess for awhile… just until he came to terms with what was going on. How the hell was he supposed to come to terms with it? Two months ago Jess had called him… two months ago his entire life had gone upside down. He'd lost the Gilmores and gained a son and now he had nothing.

The phone in his diner rang and he turned to it absently, his mind ten million miles away. His hand rose without his permission and the phone was on his ear before he could do anything about it. "Yeah," he rasped, his voice betraying the tears. Coughing a little bit, he cleared his voice and said a grumbled: "What?"

"Is it true?" Lorelai asked on the other end of the phone, and he could hear the shock on her voice.

"Yes," Luke confirmed, and he felt the world shatter around him. Jess was in a coma, he'd failed him. The phone dropped from his hand, shattering uselessly on the ground.

Tears wrenched his body as he fell on the counter heavily. When Jess had needed him and actually wanted him to help, he'd failed him. The words repeated over and over in his mind. Luke had failed him, like he always did. Before long, he felt a hand on his face and he looked up to see Lorelai standing in front of him, tears drenching her own face. They stared at each other for a few seconds before he gathered her in his arms and they shared his grief.

-gGg-

The world was rushing through her ears. She'd gotten the call when she was at dinner with Logan, trying to act professional and respectful even though her heart was back in a hospital room with a man that she couldn't be with. When the phone vibrated against her hip, she'd through nothing of it, but when it continued for almost five minutes, she finally excused herself and took the call.

"_Rory?" Lorelai called into the phone._

"_Mom… hi," Rory answered, remembering Luke's words and allowing the guilt to wash over her. "Mom I'm so sorry-."_

"_Jess is in a coma," Lorelai told her through tears._

"_What?" Rory gasped._

That was when it happened. She'd left the party without so much as a goodbye, throwing her cell phone in a trash can on the way to the hospital and trying desperately not to crash the car. By the time she'd arrived, all of the townspeople had left and Luke was gone as well. Smashing open the door to his room, she drifted to his bed and collapsed in the chair next to it.

"Oh God," she groaned, leaning towards him and running a hand down his face gently.

His skin was warm, almost feverish, but he showed no signs of having felt the touch. Tears clogged her throat and she panicked slightly, wondering what had happened since the last time she saw him… at the college. Absently, time passed for her as she mused over her thoughts. It was past eight in the morning before someone finally stumbled into the hospital. She had been there all night and she hadn't even noticed.

"You're difficult to find, Ace," Logan stumbled drunkenly.

"I wasn't trying to be," Rory brushed off, holding Jess's hand in hers and staring at his face without looking at anyone else.

"Who's this guy?" Logan slurred, slumping into one of the townspeople's chairs. Rory glared up at him a little bit. Logan sitting in that chair seemed to desecrate its innocence in her mind. Bile rose in her throat when she realized that she honestly couldn't see Logan fitting in with her old life at all, but she gagged the feeling back down when she turned back to Jess.

"He's an old friend," she said, her second hand moving up to brush a few stray hairs off Jess's forehead. A small part of her subconscious told her that she should bring in some hair gel… it would make him feel better, more Jess-like.

"So? Why are you here? Why did you leave the party?" Logan grumbled, a hand to his forehead, obviously there to support him in his stupor.

"Because he needs me," Rory cried softly. She didn't know how, or why, she just knew that he did.

"I need you too, Ace," Logan leered, and Rory shook her head in frustration.

"No you don't," she whispered, leaning over Jess as if protecting him with her body.

"Why don't you come home?" he suggested.

Rory froze. Home… where was home? She thought of her 'home' back at her grandparent's mansion. It was big, it was comfortable enough… but was it home? Her mind travelled back three years. It travelled back to when Jess would be waiting for her when she came home from school and they would kiss each other silly until they would almost walk in front of moving cars, not caring enough about their surroundings to pay attention.

A laugh froze on her lips as more tears bubbled down her face. For two people so enthralled with the tiniest of all details available in a book, they sure were ignorant to them when it came to their own surroundings. They could kiss for hours without noticing whether it was day or night.

"Ace?" Logan pressed.

"I am home," Rory finally gasped out, offering him a watery smile and kissing Jess on the forehead before leaving the room and going out to greet a crowd that she hadn't seen in years.

The two people she needed were near the back. Lorelai and Luke were supporting each other, half-limping through the crowd.

"Rory," Luke greeted lifelessly, simply staring at her like she was a demon.

"Offspring," Lorelai attempted to greet cheerfully, but it was obvious that all of them were upset and that none of them had done anything near sleeping that night.

"I'm so sorry," Rory sobbed, running into their bodies and hugging them both tightly as they hugged her. They all leant each other their support. The seconds stretched into minutes with the townspeople all funneling in to see Jess and offer him some part of their town yet again.

By the time the trio had made it into his room, the entire floor had been covered in cat designs, little ballerina shoes, random rugs with veggies on them, a few porcelain unicorns, and enough books and magazines to drown a normal person… but not Jess. Not if he were conscious to read them. Every slice of wall was covered with something. Even Lane had brought in a few band posters in remembrance of the few good band-conversations that the two had shared. It was that corner, with the music and the books that Rory identified with most.

"It's like the whole town is in here," Luke mumbled, looking around in a mixture of horror and amazement.

"It feels like home," Lorelai added.

"It feels like Jess," Rory finished, and all their eyes were drawn back to his form on the bed. Rory stepped away from the little gathering first, perching back on her chair and taking his hand into her own lightly. Some part of her wondered where Logan had drifted off to, but most of her didn't really give a damn anymore. This was where she wanted to be and no one, not Logan or her grandparents were ever going to take her away from this circle ever again.


	11. Wait

**A/N: I have been writing this chapter for AAAAAAAAGES, and I hate it guts. I know, it's bad, but I had no choice. If you want a rewrite, it'll take me even damn longer. For the moment, this is your chapter eleven. I'm sorry for the wait. v.v**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Eleven**

**Wait**

**Rated T**

"How long has she been in there today?" Lorelai asked Luke absently. He felt her hand tighten around his and they shared a moment of pure insecurity that always came with watching Rory for the past few months.

"Hours… I guess," he shrugged with a sigh and looked down to the ground.

"What do the doctors say?" she pressed, eyeing him slightly.

"The same thing they tell everyone," Luke regurgitated, as he had been since Jess had gone under over three months ago.

"Do they think…?" she trailed off, she didn't need to finish the sentence. It was the same thing that everyone had been asking for months.

"He'll make it," Luke grunted, but he had to bite back the emotions behind the words.

"I think so too," she assured him, and he looked at her with shock. In the entire time of her support, she hadn't tossed her cards in either side. "He has to... Anyone would fight for my daughter."

"Huh," he snorted, but wrapped an arm around her shoulder and hugged her tight.

"When he wakes up… do you want to, I don't know…" she seemed to choke on the words, but his strange Gilmore-sense told him precisely what she was saying, as it always did.

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Good," she sniffled, hugging into him tighter.

-gGg-

Rory sat inside the room doing her homework, reading out the teacher's instructions on her page and hearing Jess's comments inside her head. Some of them made her smile, some of them made her frown… but all of them made her wish that he was back again. One of her hands crept up the bed and touched his. She jumped at the contact, not having noticed that she was even making it.

"Hi," she whispered quietly. Even so, her voice echoed in the empty room.

Her only answer was the beeping of the machines that were keeping him alive. A tear squeezed down her cheek, which she attempted to ignore. Since she'd returned from her grandparent's house, she'd already re-enrolled in Yale, got a job in town, and was spending every spare second in Jess's room. The nurses even allowed her to bring in a bed. Everyone was worried, she knew that, but there wasn't anything she could offer them to prove that she wasn't obsessing over this.

The first time that Luke brought up the fact that this entire mess was her fault she hadn't believed him… but now…? Even though she hadn't gotten the chance to see him again… to talk to him, she still knew, somehow, that he could feel her here. If she, her presence, had forced him under, maybe it would bring him back. She was clinging to this fact as much as humanly possible, for no other reason than to talk to him again, to compare notes on books, to make sure that he was still alive. To make sure that her heart wasn't the only one shredded on that night. Tears surged to the surface again and she tried to hold back a sob.

"Yes…" she whispered quietly, placing her head on his chest and allowing the tears to fall.

-gGg-

"Rory?" Luke asked awkwardly, poking the girl's shoulder. She'd fallen asleep on Jess's chest hours ago and he hadn't had the heart to disturb her until now, but if he didn't, she'd miss her first class for the day. Coughing, he nudged her again. "Rory?"

"Huh?" she murmured, lifting her head up jerkily and looking up at Luke with wide eyes. "What?"

"It's past twelve… just wondering if you felt like going to class," he mumbled awkwardly, not knowing what to tell her.

"What?" she shrieked, pulling her books together frantically. He backed away from the whirlwind that was a Gilmore girl in a panic and hid behind one of the gnomes.

"You fell asleep," he supplied, eyeing her carefully as she almost swatted one of Jess's tubes out of him. Her hand stopped in mid-air, freezing in contemplation. She lowered it and looked down at the boy in question. The tension in the room seemed to rush out and was replaced with sadness… a melancholy that wouldn't be healed until Jess rose from his death-like state.

"I did," she agreed lifelessly and placed her hand back on Jess's chest.

"Your class," he nudged, and the panic returned. It was remarkable how that worked… one minute they could be totally stressed, the next second they were placid, and then they were back to being terrified again.

"Thank you!" she shouted as she rushed from the room, a few blank papers flying out of her binder in her hurry. He watched her for a second and then took up her spot beside Jess. If it were up to him, he'd be in the room twenty four hours a day, but Rory had first dibs… not to mention she had a tendency to kick everyone out the second she arrived.

"I have some good news for you," Luke mumbled, then coughed, pondering whether or not Jess would mind if he touched him. Deciding against it, he leaned back in the chair and took off his hat, shaking out his hair a little bit. "Your book's selling great… apparently the world loves tragedy." He sat forward again, the front two chair legs echoing loudly in the room as they slammed onto the ground.

"I gathered your notes for your second book… I guess, I mean, it was the first book you wrote… but you didn't finish it. I found them between your mattresses. Too obvious, I thought that it would be harder… but I sent them into the publishing house, and they're going to send it out as an autobiography – unfinished. They say it's really good, really heartfelt… We're getting our copies next week," Luke sighed, placing his head in his hands and thinking about the future. "They said that you could be a bestseller. They say that… well, said… if you hadn't, uh, if this hadn't happened, that you could have been huge.

"This can't be the end for you, kid… you have too much going for you right now. You have to wake up," Luke begged, grabbing onto Jess's hand and attempting to hold back his emotions. Taking a deep breath, he forced them back and let go of Jess's hand again.

"Lorelai and I… we're going to get married. I want you to be my best man, Jess. I'm not going to get married without you there," Luke admitted admonishingly. "That means that you'd better wake your ass up so that I'm not miserable for the rest of my life."

"Way to lay the guilt on him," Lorelai chirped in from the door.

"Jeez!" Luke jumped, turning around to see her smiling a little bit unsurely.

"I brought you some tea, and some food," she told him, handing him a cup filled with a green-tinted liquid, peppermint. The food was a salad, wilted, soggy and absolutely unappetizing. He looked up at her a bit warily. "It's the thought that counts, isn't it?"

"Of course," he grumbled under his breath and picked at the salad a little bit, trying to see if there was a crisp leaf in the bunch. They sat in silence for awhile, both of them glancing at Jess out of the corner of their eyes and sighing occasionally, obviously unhappy.

"He needs to wake up," Lorelai griped. "I have my dress… and my flowers, and everything's picked out!"

Instead of going along with the normal joking manner that they took on, he merely looked back down at Jess sadly. The salad was turned away, untouched with the exception of his playing. His eyes were downcast, upset.

"What if he doesn't?" he finally voiced, staring at Jess with fear in his eyes.

"What?" Lorelai choked, coughing a little bit to clear out the cheeseburger that had gotten stuck in her throat.

"What if he doesn't wake up?" Luke repeated lifelessly.

"He will," Lorelai stated firmly.

"How do you know?" Luke sighed.

"Because he has to," Lorelai assured him, leaning forward in her chair and grabbed his hand tightly in one of hers.

"But what if he doesn't want to?" Luke half-cried, trying to regain his composure as best he could.

"He wants to," she brushed off.

"How do you know?" he requested again.

"Wouldn't you?" she shrugged.

Silence took over again as he considered it. Things had been going right for Jess just seconds before he'd passed out. His legs were working again and his book was published. The world was shifting back into place, and Rory was there… Rory, Lorelai. His eyes rose up to the blue orbs that were studying him currently and he nodded. Would he want to come back to Lorelai, even if what had happened to Rory and Jess happened to them? Yeah, he'd risk it… he didn't have a choice.

-gGg-

Rory watched as everyone finally vacated from Jess's room. They thought that she was staying at Yale tonight, but her bed had felt empty… alone. It was pathetic, but she couldn't sleep unless she knew that he was there, waiting for her, conscious or not. Not to mention that she'd had another run-in with Logan, and those were always pleasant.

"Hey," she whispered as she drifted into the room, making her way to his side.

"Hey," was answered back groggily, and she froze, her back going ramrod straight and her eyes darting to Jess's prone form on the bed, wondering if it was just an illusion in her mind.

"Hello?" she asked, her voice barely even there. The shock was rattling her system, making her nervous, making her hands sweat.

"What time is it?" he groaned, half asleep. The tubes that were in him rattled a little bit as he attempted to breathe on his own.

"Nurse!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs, slamming on the door and turning around to the edge of Jess's bed and telling him: "It's late," softly.

"What's going on?" he moaned, his head lopping to the side gently, his brown eyes demanding an answer.

"Stuff," she replied, attempting to keep the tears from streaming down her face. She didn't want to scare him… but it had been three months.

"How long was I out?" he muttered, even as his breathing became short and labored, like the machines that used to be taking care of him were now hurting him.

"A while," she evaded in his normal style. "But that doesn't matter anymore, because now you're here, and you're awake. I'm so sorry, Jess… I'm so sorry."

"For what?" he rasped as the nurse squad burst into the room and to his side. Rory was shoved out to make room for them all and she gladly ran into the hallway, pulling out her cell phone as she went. Glancing through the window to watch their progress, she dialed her mother, knowing that Luke was probably with her.

"Hmugh?" Lorelai greeted.

"Jess is awake!" Rory gasped, as if just coming to terms with it herself.

"Woah, what?" Lorelai exclaimed into the phone, and she heard a loud 'smack' in the night, which probably meant that Luke was awake now too.

"Jess, he just woke up," Rory explained breathlessly and watched as the machines were carted out of the room, replaced by another squad of nurses who were helping Jess return to the world.

There was a massive amount of hushed talking on the other end of the phone before Lorelai came back, but Rory had totally forgotten that it was in her hand. Her eyes were drawn to Jess, who was staring at the window in confusion, obviously not understanding what the hell was going on, let alone what all the machines being carted out of the room were for. He was attempting to shove the nurses away, but he was too weak.

"I have to go," Rory whispered, the phone slipping out of her hand and back into her pocket. Their eyes met and she felt a rush through her that she hadn't felt since the day that he'd left… that rush that told her that she had to be there, had to stop him, that it was up to her.

Weaving through the crowd of nurses, she danced up to his bed and took his hand. Their eyes never separated.

"Are you allowed to be in here?" one of the nurses asked her angrily.

"Piss off," Jess growled at her, turning his eyes from hers to deliver a look that Rory had only gained once or twice in her life, mostly when Dean was involved.

The nurse frowned at him but continued on with her work. The world dissipated around them and Rory couldn't help herself from crying a bit more openly.

"You're here," he commented lifelessly.

"I'm here," she agreed numbly.

"Why/" he asked.

"I-I," she stammered, unable to think up a reason that didn't involve the strange rolling feeling in her stomach that caused her to turn into a teenager again at his glance.

"It doesn't matter," he shook off and smiled at her.

"We're giving him a sedative," one of the nurses informed them both.

"But he's been… does he really need it?" Rory protested. "I mean, his uncle hasn't even seen him yet."

"Are you a nurse?" the woman asked impatiently, knowing the arguments that came from this room. "Are you a doctor? Premed perhaps?"

"No," Rory sighed.

"Then let me do my damn job and stop objecting," she bit and injected the sedative into Jess's IV.

"G'night," Jess mumbled, his eyes closing slowly.

"G'night," Rory answered, running her hand through his hair.

"You'll be here when I wake up, right? This isn't some fucked up dream?" he requested quietly, fading out of the world.

"I'm not leaving," she consoled, running her hand through his hair and hugging his hand close to her body, settling into the long wait by his side. School would have to wait, there were more important things right now.


	12. UnComa

**A/N: I liked writing this chapter. It's chaos, it has a lot of townies... it's fun. A bit of fluff and a bit of drama. Enjoy it while I figure out what the hell I'm doing. **

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Twelve**

**Un-Coma**

**Rated T**

"How did it happen?" Luke asked excitedly, bouncing around like a little kid on Christmas day.

"I don't know," Rory answered quietly, still sitting by Jess's side, holding his hand, running her fingers through his hair gently. She was arranging it and rearranging it. Somehow he didn't look right in long hair. It needed to be shorter, gelled. Smiling to herself, she realized that she'd phased out the rest of the world and had to blink to regain her footing.

"Rory?" her mother prodded, giving her a look that was a mixture of amusement and fear.

"I didn't hear you," she admitted guiltily.

A look passed between the two adults, something akin to terror, and they ducked ungracefully from the room. Rory watched them, misunderstanding the look as something happy and went back to playing with Jess's hair absently.

-gGg-

"Oh God, she can't do this again!" Lorelai ranted, throwing up her arms and placing a hand to her forehead.

"She's been in there for three months. Did you really expect her to just - I don't know - abandon him when he woke up?" Luke sighed.

"No, not abandon him, just not fall totally back in love with him," the elder Gilmore raved.

"It's our weakness," Luke joked, but she just shot him a withering glare. "What?"

"We Gilmore women are strong, we don't have weaknesses," Lorelai snapped. "We're amazons!"

"Amazons who wear designer clothes and stiletto heels?" Luke shot back.

"American Amazons!" Lorelai declared.

"Uh huh," Luke nodded, knowing that she was grabbing at straws.

"So you're supporting this – that?" Lorelai grumbled and looked back into the room, where Rory had placed her head on Jess's chest and was in the midst of falling asleep. "His hand is going to fall off if she doesn't let it go soon."

"No it won't, and yes," Luke grumbled.

"Gah! I feel so alone! You're supposed to support me, I'm your fiancé!" she sobbed, throwing herself at him overdramatically.

"And he's my nephew," Luke said half-angrily. They'd already had this discussion, and both of them knew that it didn't end well.

"So I guess that offering something kinky won't make you change your mind, 'cause I think I have a pair of fuzzy handcuffs at home," Lorelai chirped.

"Nope," Luke agreed solemnly.

"Damn, so we're stuck with this?" she questioned.

"Yup," he answered with a nod.

"Do you think we could have a double wedding?" Lorelai changed subjects rapidly.

"What?" Luke deadpanned, staring at her in horror.

"A double wedding! It would be perfect!" she stated, her eyes wide in excitement.

"Please tell me you're joking," he blinked.

"A double white wedding! My parents would have a heart attack!" she declared and started doing a little 'dance' around the hallway.

"Shouldn't we be asking them first," Luke stammered a little bit, pointing at Rory and Jess and attempting to take in the situation that he'd just got himself into.

"It wouldn't take me very long to make her the dress, I mean… it took me all of a week to make her that blue one for her first dance, but maybe it would be easier just to buy it," she continued as though he wasn't there.

"Lorelai-," Luke attempted to cut her off, but she danced around his grasp and threw open Jess's door.

"So what do you think?" she demanded of Rory, who jumped and looked up at them with doe-eyes, like she'd been doing something wrong and didn't want to be punished for it. Frowning, Luke moved into the room and stood beside Lorelai awkwardly.

"Of what?" Rory asked, stunned with their sudden entrance.

"Of a double wedding!" Lorelai sighed, like it was old news and Rory was supposed to have gotten the memo months ago.

"Who? What?" Rory blinked, obviously as shocked with this proclamation as Luke was.

"You, me, Luke and Jess!" Lorelai chirped.

"Woah, pause for a second, what?" Rory continued with the deer-in-the-headlights looks.

"Well seeing as how you and Jess are still completely head over heels-," Lorelai started, and Luke leant against a wall in defeat, knowing a rant when he saw it.

"What?" Rory squeaked in protest, letting go of Jess's hand and jumping away.

"-and don't try to deny it because it's obvious. I thought that we could have a double wedding once Jess wakes up and is able to don a suit!" Lorelai continued, not even really acknowledging Rory.

"But mom-" Rory started, and suddenly he was listening to two ranting women at once.

"It would be a white wedding-,"

"-Jess just woke up!"

"-and we both look good in white, hell, we could have matching dresses!"

"Who knows if he even wants to talk to me again-,"

"Ooo! Yours could have blue flowers on it and mine could have pink!"

"-I mean, after what happened and with the coma-,"

"Maybe mine should have blue and yours could have pink."

"-and now with the waking up from the coma and his book-,"

"It would be adorable!"

"-oh my God! He doesn't even know about the second book!"

"And we could have Taylor do the ceremony-,"

"He's going to be so angry that we published that!"

"Fuck, doesn't anyone in this hospital go to sleep?" Jess groaned from the bed, halting Rory in her tracks.

"-he'd love that!" Lorelai finished, and then looked down at the now-awake Jess. "You're awake!"

"Unfortunately," he grumbled.

"Thank God," Luke moaned and stepped over to his nephew's side. There was an unspoken greeting, a calm that settled over the room that even Lorelai was able to sense.

"Hey," Jess finally said.

"Hey," Luke greeted in return.

"Hi," Jess faced Rory.

"Hi," Rory greeted back.

"Hi," Jess greeted Lorelai.

"Hi," Lorelai sighed.

"Hi," Rory greeted Luke.

"Uh, hi," Luke continued.

"Why does this feel so familiar?" Lorelai mumbled.

All of them were sent to a flashback to three years ago… to the day after the Dance Marathon. They all looked away from each other, attempting not to connect these two occurrences.

"How long have I been out?" Jess questioned abruptly, looking back up at the three others who were still attempting to look anywhere but him, especially with this question.

-gGg-

Jess couldn't help the fear that was growing inside him. They were all avoiding him, avoiding his eyes, and avoiding talking about the hospital. He was able to move his legs now, which was a blessing, but he was still pissed off with his inability to tell time. There were no calendars in his room, no clocks, nothing. Sighing, he felt the sudden urge to scream.

"Can someone just call the doctor?" he requested tiredly after no one answered for a full two minutes.

"Sure," Luke nodded, grabbing Lorelai's arm and dragging her out of the room with him, despite her raving protests and something about a wedding.

"Who's getting married?" he asked Rory with a frown.

"Don't ask," Rory sighed, and then smiled at him loosely. "Welcome back!"

"Back from where? Why can't you tell me how long I've been out?" he sighed, knowing that it must be bad or else they wouldn't be putting up such a fight.

"You were in a coma, Jess," she told him after a second.

"What?" he gasped, feeling the press of time against his mind. A coma…? That could mean weeks, months, hell, years.

"Three months," she cried, grabbing onto his hand and holding it as if to prove to herself that he was still there.

"Three months," he repeated, feeling like a parrot.

"But you're back now!" Rory proclaimed.

"Yeah," he sighed, but he didn't feel back, hell, he barely felt awake, let alone part of the world.

As the doctor came in, looking both relieved and scared of something, most probably relief that Jess was awake and fear of Lorelai, he was shoved aside by a group of people before he could take two steps. Miss Patty, Babette, Kirk, Sookie, Jackson, Bootsy, Taylor, Cesar and a whole bunch of other people he couldn't even recognize poured into his room, dragging all sorts of party gear with them.

"Oh God," he moaned, wishing that he had the strength to get up and run away.

"What's going on?" the doctor questioned, dodging cakes, burners, warmers, large metal cans, a barbeque, an assortment of candies that would make anyone sick and more food than anyone, with the exception of a Stars Hollow resident or Gilmore girl, could consume.

"It's a party, honey," Miss Patty cooed. "Are you married?"

"Yes..?" he answered, wondering if this was the correct answer.

"Oh," she sighed, disappointed, and went off to help Babette set up the cat and gnome candles that she'd brought.

"What is the party for?" the doctor questioned Jess, moving through the chaos to stand beside his patient, who was being saddled with ten million streamers.

"He woke up," Rory chirped, and Jess sent her a glare.

"Here you are," Babette proclaimed, putting a hat on Jess's head. "We couldn't find anything that said anything about comas, so we made our own!" She held up a mirror so he could see it. The thing was a violent hot pink colour with blue writing all over it, mostly signatures, but an incredibly messy set of block letters covered the front saying 'Un-Coma Boy'.

"Gee," Jess mumbled.

"I did the writing!" Kirk shouted, hoping for some recognition.

"Thanks," Jess growled, causing Kirk to run away.

"And this is all for you waking up?" the doctor shouted over a stereo which was now playing some sort of oldies that were being danced to by a group of little girls.

"Oh!" Rory gasped, looking at the girls. "That routine was supposed to be for the wedding!"

"Wedding?" Jess asked again, having to holler over the noises.

"Yeah, Luke and Lorelai are getting married!" Babette informed him as she rushed past.

"What kind of cake do you like?" Sookie demanded as she stumbled over to his bed with a butcher's knife.

"Jeez, what the hell is that for?" Jess squirmed, attempting to get away from the knife.

"The cake," Rory said, as though it were obvious.

"I don't know," Jess finally answered, shaking his head.

"Is this the way it always is?" the doctor asked, astonished with the bustling movement in such a small room.

"Should we take this wall out?" Taylor asked Tom, standing by the windowed wall.

"Wait, what?" the doctor yelled, panicked, as Tom started taking measurements.

"That guy's really nervous," Bootsy commented, dragging around a beer. "Do you want one?"

"Yes," Jess half-begged, reaching for Bootsy's beer, which was being offered.

"No he can't," Rory slapped Jess's hand out of the air, causing him to glare mercilessly at her.

"Why?" he snarled.

"Because you're in a hospital bed!" Rory pointed out.

"Jeez," he sighed again, leaning his head back on his pillow and preparing to brace himself for a long night.

"So should we bring in the sledge hammers?" Tom asked Taylor, who was talking to the doctor, who was screaming about how they can't just destroy hospital property.

"I have them out in the hallway," Kirk declared from the middle of the crowd.

"Sledge hammers?!" the doctor shouted. "No!"

"Who's he?" Taylor demanded stuffily.

"He's a doctor or something, check out the jacket," Bootsy pointed out, grabbing the doctor and tugging off his jacket and then slinging it over his shoulders and then holding out his beer to the doctor. "Do you want one?"

"What?" the doctor gazed in horror at the beer. "No!"

"Suit yourself," Bootsy shrugged and started away.

"I have the sledge hammers!" Kirk shouted, panting and staggering under the weight of the hammers.

"On second thought," the doctor sighed, grabbing the beer out of Bootsy's hand.

"That's the spirit!" Bootsy patted the doctor's shoulder and went to obtain another beer.

"Ever been to hell?" Jess asked Rory conversationally, watching everything in front of him.

"Nope," she shrugged, eating a fry from Luke's and attempting to pick out a cake from Sookie's table, which held at least seven different types.

"I think it probably looks like this," Jess nodded absently.

"You're overreacting," she shook her head, like he was the biggest wimp in the world and needed to obtain some balls. He glared at her, the pink hat's streamers falling into his eyes and cringed as the entire party started singing a homemade song about people in comas and how it's good to come out of them.

"This is the birthday in hell, this is worse than hell, is there anything worse than hell?" Jess moaned, hiding his face in Rory's hair.

"Aww, poor baby," Rory pet his hair unsympathetically.

After the town's song was finished Bootsy, Jackson and the doctor, whose name was revealed as Dillon, started into a rendition of Kashmir, with Jackson on drums, Dillon on air-guitar and Bootsy on vocals, causing most people to gape in horror.

"Never… ever will I ever listen to Led Zeppelin the same way again," Jess cried.

"It could be worse," Rory attempted to convince him.

"How? That's my fucking doctor," Jess pointed out the man.

"You could be in a coma," she said solemnly, grabbing his hand lightly in her own.

"Yeah… that would be worse," Jess admitted, squeezing her hand tightly. The world seemed to fade away again, leaving them alone in the room… at least, until Kirk ran into the room in a grass skirt and a sea-shell bra which caused a lot of shouting, screaming and scrambling. Rory was knocked to the floor. Jess scrambled off the bed and reached down to help her up. They paused again, the chaos blending into the background as they moved closer. The room's energy seemed to pause, freeze as they shared looks and their lips moved closer.

-gGg-

What could he say? He knew it was coming. As he watched his nephew and his soon-to-be daughter-in-law kiss, all he could figure was that it made sense. Gilmores and Danes seemed drawn to each other. It was terrifying, especially terrifying because Jess was more a son to him than anyone else in his history, and the fact that his surrogate-son was about to give his heart to the same girl who'd absolutely slaughtered it in the past made him want to move ten million miles away. But a part of him new that Jess would come back. Sooner or later, Jess would go back to Rory and him to Lorelai. They were magnets.

The room, complete with a half-naked Kirk, was in shambles. There was a sledge hammer hanging out of the window, another hanging out of a wall and Bootsy was passed out in the hallway. Lorelai had gone home in search of more junk food and left him alone to make sure that the party didn't get out of hand, but for Stars Hollow, what the hell was out of hand? Sighing, he turned and walked down to the cafeteria, rolling his peppermint tea in his hands and pondering what the hell he was going to tell Lorelai… as well as offering his prayer to God that she wasn't serious about the wedding.


	13. Run

**A/N: Greetings... I've been going through a touch of hell lately. My apologies for the lack of updates. It also didn't help that I had no idea how to move on from that scene, but I guess that everyone could guess where I'd go after... besides, what the hell good is this time of story with an ending like this? Enjoy, my dahlinks.**

**My Latest Mistake**

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Run**

**Rated T**

What quite possibly was one of the more organized, functional and perhaps strange moments of his life came to a shattering end when he watched his soon-to-be-daughter jump halfway across the room and flee out the door. The entire party paused, staring at him as though he could answer their questions and then looking at his nephew questioningly.

The look on Jess's face was enough to make him want to chase after Rory and give her a piece of his mind again, but instead he merely rushed into the room, roaring for everyone to get their asses out. Those who weren't drunk helped those who were drunk stagger out of the room.

"What happened?" Luke deadpanned, but they both knew what happened.

"Shit," Jess breathed, biting back what Luke knew were tears.

"Yeah," he settled down beside his bereft nephew as the boy struggled to hold onto his emotions, to keep them under that dark wrap that had settled around his heart before he knew Rory Gilmore, the one that Luke had worked so hard to break through in these last months. "You're not planning on shutting me out now too, are you?"

"Will it make me feel better?" Jess rasped as one of his fists balled in his rage and his voice almost broke. Luke admired the boy for his ability to keep his head. God knows that if Lorelai had done that, he would have either gone into a rage or broken down. Seeing as how Jess couldn't walk without aid, let alone punch a wall, there was very little chance of the rage setting in.

"Probably not," Luke shrugged, hoping against everything in his mind that Jess would pull himself out of this enough for them to talk about what had just happened.

"Shit," Jess said again, and then decided to continue with some new words. "Shit, fuck, God-fucking-damnit!" Each word was getting louder until they were screams of rage.

Instead of calming him down or attempting to get him to lower his voice, Luke nodded his approval of the blue streak and handed Jess a few random objects to be thrown around the room.

"Feel better?" Luke asked when Jess had managed to throw every piece of food onto the ground as well as absolutely destroy his streamer, but the hat remained untouched.

"No," Jess replied bitterly.

"Do you want me to get you anything?" Luke asked hesitantly, no longer knowing what to do now that Jess had returned to his monosyllabic nature.

"Some cocaine would be nice," Jess snorted, and then sighed in frustration, running his hands through is long hair and then stopping, fingering a piece of it. "How about a haircut?"

"New style?" Luke suggested.

"Nah, I just hate these fucking bangs," Jess snarled, tugging on one of the strands like he would pull it out of his head. "Maybe dye it."

"Blonde?" Luke asked incredulously.

"Hell no, how about bright blue… think it would give Taylor an aneurism?" Jess pondered quietly, the banter calming him a little bit, or at least Luke hoped that's what it was.

"With any luck," Luke agreed, and the room fell into silence again.

"When can I go home?" Jess finally asked.

"When you can walk," Luke shrugged.

"Walking… would be good," Jess groaned, putting a hand over his face miserably.

"You should get some sleep," Luke said as he rose to his feet.

"If you see Rory… tell her to…" Jess trailed off, unable to even put a word together when it had Rory's name in it.

"I got it," Luke cut him off.

Jess nodded his thanks and Luke walked out of the room with a large burden on his shoulder. The door closed behind him with a thud and he almost felt like joining in with Jess's blue streak. It was terrible what Rory kept doing to him. The Gilmore women, fickle creatures as they were, seemed to be more addictive to his nephew than the drugs that he'd used to destroy his life for two years.

As he was about to start pondering what was Rory's influence and what were the drugs, his phone rang. He looked around stealthily, not wanting to be yelled at, but the doctor was passed out a few meters away and the nurses appeared to be avoiding this wing like the plague.

"Hello?" he asked gruffly, planning to rebuff whoever it was.

"What the hell happened over there?" Lorelai's startled voice replied, and he sighed.

"Ask your daughter," he bit out after a few seconds of blind anger that he managed to clear enough to get that out.

"I did, she isn't answering me," Lorelai grumped. "Does it have anything to do with a former boyfriend of hers whose party she just attended?"

"No, it has everything to do with the former boyfriend whose life she crushed and, to give reason to her current actions, plans to do again," he snapped, knowing that he wasn't angry at Lorelai but unable to help his tone.

"Woah, where did that come from?" she seemed to recoil, and he knew he wanted to stop, but he couldn't.

"Tell her to stay away from the hospital. Jess doesn't want to see her and I don't want her around," Luke said evenly, even though he was shaking to know how she would react to this latest ban.

"Back-up, what?" she demanded.

"They kissed Lorelai, and she ran out on him – again," he explained tiredly.

"Oh… oh boy," Lorelai sighed.

"Not the words I or my nephew chose, but close enough," Luke growled.

"So she ran out on him again? He did it to her three times," Lorelai pointed out grumpily.

"If you even dare attempt to defend her in this, I will hang up on you and I swear I will cut you off until Jess is better and is able to leave," he threatened, meaning every word.

"My coffee?" she whined.

"And other things," he continued.

"Dirty," she scolded.

"Only when it calls for it," he shrugged, even though she couldn't see it.

"So… no Rory?" Lorelai grumbled.

"No Rory," he confirmed.

"She's spent the last three months glued to his side," Lorelai mused.

"Now she'll spend the rest of her life as far away from him as she can manage," Luke snapped.

"Shouldn't that be Jess's decision?" Lorelai bristled.

"I'm making his decision for him. I'm not going to let him fall back into a coma, Lorelai… it's not happening," Luke stated firmly.

"What about the wedding?" Lorelai complained.

"They'll be on opposite sides of us and we'll line them up so that they're not beside each other… it'll work," Luke said softly.

"When?" she asked quietly, as though this was a secret topic that should be considered very carefully.

"When Jess can walk," Luke told her just as quietly.

"Good," she murmured.

"I have to go," Luke told her as he saw the doctor stumbled to life, falling off the chairs and landing in a very precarious position.

"G'night, lover!" Lorelai ended their call cheerfully and he closed his phone to go over and aid the very drunk man.

-gGg-

Luke left the room and Jess was left alone to his thoughts, what little he could coax out of his mind. What he needed at the moment was something to dash his mind of her, of her blue eyes looking up at him with the same adoration, want – no – need that he himself felt. But still, even after all these years, after the drugs, the alcohol, the wheelchair and even the coma, she ran out on him.

Tears that had been gathering behind his eyes for the past hour threatened to unveil themselves, but he hid them, not wanting to be presumed weak – in love… with her. He wished he could hate her, he wished he could just wring her neck for all she's put him through, but he couldn't. She was apart of his life, and he feared that she always would be.

Whilst wallowing in his misery, he started to lose track of time. His legs, while no longer numb, were weak and unable to move him and his body had started to protest to his position on the bed. Sighing in frustration, he pondered how weak he'd be if he flung himself off and attempted to walk without the aid of his wheelchair.

"Fuck," he swore as he attempted the maneuver. His legs managed to swing, but they got caught on the blankets and were now sending him off-balance, about ready to topple head over heels onto the floor. "Shit."

Arms flailing, body reeling, he barely managed to gain a grip on the bed before he slipped and fell. "Fuck!" he swore again as he found himself unable to put any weight on his now-numb legs. Frustration poured through his soul and he felt as though he was going to start burning from his hatred.

Another bunch of curse words escaped his lips as he finally managed to get some sort of support from his lower half, which was then accompanied by pain and lots of it. Panting and sweating, he managed to pull himself onto his bed, laughing a little bit at his own stupidity.

But the pain… it made him forget her. But was there any point to prolonging it just to keep her from his mind? Grinding his teeth, he forced his legs beneath him again, fighting back that frustration when he felt them slipping, but grateful that the name slipped from his mind. Even she couldn't anchor him in his misery and nothing suited him better.

Slipping a little bit on the floor, he finally managed to grip his sweaty feet to the floor and started pulling on the tables that had been set up around the room. From table to gnome and then back to the table, it was the first time in his entire time of being in the hospital that he was grateful for all the decorations around his room. They made it easier to pull himself along, half-screaming in pain. Finally, about halfway back to the bed, it was too much. He collapsed to the floor, his hair slick against his forehead and his breathing unable to cope with his body's exertions.

There were a few blessed quiet moments in his mind, where nothing but swirling blackness surrounded him, but finally she appeared again, on the edge of his consciousness. Frustration leapt into his bones and he did something that he'd once promised himself that, no matter how far he went, he would never do. He lifted up his head and smashed it against the ground, knocking himself unconscious and blocking out any thoughts of her from his mind.

-gGg-

To say that she was shocked when the nurses ran past her, instead of for her, was an understatement. Rory had snuck out of the house when she'd heard her mother talking to Luke. It wasn't as though she didn't realize that she'd be causing Jess pain, but the pain that she, herself, was feeling didn't make it any easier to go back and face him, to be the man about this situation when Jess was too incapable of doing it himself.

"Jess?" Rory asked as she got nearer to his room, seeing that it was apparently the centre of the nurse's attentions.

"Jess!" she screamed, running at it as she saw his bare feet on the ground, with the nurses around him checking to make sure that it was alright to move him. "Jess!"

"Who's this?" one of the nurses asked, obviously not a regular.

"Rory Gilmore, ma'am… the patient's… friend," another one answered, giving Rory an odd look as though wondering why she hadn't been in the room when they'd first arrived. After all, it wasn't as though she'd ever left him in his unconscious state, why the hell would she leave him now that he was actually awake enough to enjoy her chatter.

"Friend, not family? Get her the hell out of here, we don't need him relapsing because some friend," the nurse snarled, and the younger one rushed to Rory's side, grabbing her arm and forcing her away.

"Relapsing?" Rory gasped, refusing to be moved. "Jess!"

"Get her out of here!" the nurse-in-command shouted at the top of her lungs and the younger continued to yank on her arm.

"Rory!" someone called from down the hallway, and she turned to see her mother launching herself towards her, probably meaning to take her away before the nurses could manhandle her. "What's going on?" She skidded to a stop outside of Jess's room, seeing the problem within.

"Get them both out of here!" the other nurse stated, and the one holding Rory grabbed both Gilmore women's arms and dragged them away.

"What's going on!?" Lorelai demanded, and Rory knew that this curiosity was more for Luke's benefit than her own. After all, what the hell did Lorelai care about Jess?

"He's relapsing," Rory whispered, barely able to get the words out.

"Oh my God," Lorelai whimpered, seeming to crumple in on herself. "Luke…"

"You have to call him," Rory told her firmly and looked back at the room.

"Don't even think about it," the nurse barked, grabbing Rory's arm firmly and forcing her harder towards their destination.

"He needs me!" Rory screamed in frustration.

"Rory… no," Lorelai said through tears, grabbing her daughter and pulling her towards her body firmly. "There's nothing you can do."

"I can be there!" Rory objected.

"What the hell is going on?" Luke roared upon seeing them, obviously having gone down to the cafeteria to sober up the drunken doctor on his arm.

"It's Jess-," Rory started.

"What the hell did you do to him!?" Luke panicked, looking at her like she was a demon and then taking off towards Jess's room before anyone could stop him.

"Me?" Rory gasped, her eyes wide.

"Sweetie…" Lorelai began, pulling her close again.

"Me… it was me…" Rory realized, repeating the mantra over and over to herself.

"Rory," Lorelai attempted, but her comforting words were cut off with Rory's repeated statement.

The world seemed to fade until the thoughts sunk in. Two years ago, they hadn't said it, no one had mentioned it… but two years ago was when she'd said no, when she'd told him that she'd wanted nothing to do with him… when she'd slept with Dean. Two years ago, when he'd started this… was it because of her? The drugs, the wheelchair, the coma… was it all because of her? Something in her mind couldn't handle the guilt and she collapsed against her mother, sobbing and begging for forgiveness from someone who wasn't in any position to grant it.


End file.
